


Black Princess Ascendant

by Mina_Harry3



Series: Black Queen [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Child Abandonment, Child Abuse, Dark Magic, Familiars, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore, Past Child Abuse, Prophecy, Rituals, Runes, Sacrifice, Voodoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-04-23 10:28:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 43
Words: 294,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19149196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mina_Harry3/pseuds/Mina_Harry3
Summary: As always, not my work - the true and almighty author is SilentlyWatches on FFN and I have their permission to post this.It's boring constantly copying and pasting a disclaimer so take this as your final notice. Not mine!Anyway, happy reading!!MH





	1. Summer Emergencies

**Author's Note:**

> As always, not my work - the true and almighty author is SilentlyWatches on FFN and I have their permission to post this.
> 
> It's boring constantly copying and pasting a disclaimer so take this as your final notice. Not mine!
> 
> Anyway, happy reading!!  
> MH

**Let's see… BAMF antihero/villain protagonist, check. Sane and deadly Dark Lord, check. Familial angst aplenty, check. Muse bouncing around like a squirrel on cocaine, check and double check. Looks like we're ready to roll.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did James and Lily trust their security to someone outside their cottage, even though Bill later proved that having the Secret Keeper living under the Fidelius Charm he protects is entirely possible? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 1  
** **Summer Emergencies**

"Sirius, I've been looking all over for… What  _are_  you doing?"

The grey-eyed wizard held out a hand to request her silence while he hung the mirrored ball from the ceiling and charmed it so that all its reflections would be blue and yellow. Lowering his wand, he motioned towards the other decorations. "What do you think?"

His guest quirked one eyebrow and glanced at the palm fronds, the pitchers full of red and green drinks, the golden streamers stretched along the walls, and the phonographs blaring catchy tunes before she ran her hand through her brown locks – just a few shades lighter than the black hair her sisters and he himself bore – and sighed heavily. "Three things, Sirius. First, disco is dead. Thankfully. Second,  _why_  are you redecorating the kitchen?"

"It's the summer solstice, Andi!" The woman sighed again and waved her hand in a  _'get on with it'_  motion. "Since Narcissa was so insistent on following the Old Ways this past December, I figured,  _'Sirius, you old dog, why don't you do the same?'_  But, and here's the kicker, since the  _winter_  solstice is all about the Dark, that means that the longest day of the year would be for the Light. It's perfect!"

Andromeda Tonks nee Black, affectionately known to her family as 'Andi', closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "There are so many things wrong with that line of thought that I'm not sure where to start. You  _do_  realize that Cissy will probably take offense at this, right? And that Jen's almost sure to side with her over you?"

"Nah, she'd know it was a joke," Sirius replied with a broad smile. Over the past year, he had gotten to know his cousin much better than he ever expected he would, and eventually he discovered that she actually had a slight fondness for elaborate pranks, though she would rather cut out her own tongue than ever admit that fact. The cheerful expression melted off his face as he answered the second question. "And I think Jen could use a couple of laughs right about now, even if it's just from them chasing me around the house and hexing me."

The other member of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black looked down at his statement. Jennifer, his goddaughter and heiress, had won the Triwizard Tournament hosted at Hogwarts this past year despite being the second youngest competitor, and the reward for her display of skill had been to witness the resurrection of Lord Voldemort, the most violent Dark Lord to wage war upon Magical Britain since Edward Cromwell in the late seventeenth century. She had been tortured and nearly murdered in an unknown graveyard, and it had been only her quick thinking – along with casting the horrendously illegal and dark Imperius Curse – that let her escape.

Only four days had passed since that terrible event, and already he was becoming distraught at her increasing silence and depression. Just the previous afternoon, she had retired to her bedroom before the sun had even set! She needed something to cheer her up, even if just for a few minutes.

Andi finally returned her gaze to him and nodded. "Right now, I don't know that she would necessarily  _enjoy_  it, but I do believe she would appreciate the effort you put in. Still, I am a tad confused. You said you wanted to celebrate the Light, yes?"

"Right."

"But as far as I am aware, the actual Light families renounced the Old Ways centuries ago. They don't  _have_  solstice celebrations, do they?"

"Not that I've ever heard of."

"So… you're basically pulling all this out of your arse, aren't you?"

"Pretty much," he cheerfully agreed.

She sighed a third time, causing him to wonder if that many of those in such a short time could possibly be unhealthy. "Which brings me back to my final point. It's obvious you have no idea what you're doing."

"Well,  _excuse_  me for being out of practice," he said none-too-sullenly, his mood plummeting. "Azkaban doesn't exactly make for the best partying location. Too dreary, too damp, and too many  _soul-sucking demons_."

"Well, I do seem to be putting my foot in my mouth today, don't I?" she commented after a brief pause. "Here, I'll finish setting all this up if you find Jen and bring her down."

A whimper escaped him. "Er, well, can't  _you_  do that? She's probably still in bed right about now."

"Is the big, brave Padfoot afraid to face one sleeping teenager?"

"Andromeda, she sleeps in the nude," Sirius reminded her with a shiver. "Seeing her run around naked when she was a baby was one thing, but I'd rather not have to see her like that again if I can help it. It's  _beyond_ awkward." It had been for him, at least; Jen had not cared one little bit, too familiar with grown men staring at her bare flesh to have retained any form of body modesty.

Once again he cursed the fact that when he had finally managed to find her the previous summer, she had been working for the past several years in a child brothel.

"And you think it isn't for me, too? The only one of us who  _doesn't_  have a problem finding her in that state is Cissy, for obvious reasons."

He groused, "Don't remind me. I spend my time trying to  _forget_  that she's a pedophile."

"At least she isn't  _your_  little sister," the woman snapped back. "Get upstairs and wake Jen up. It's past noon, for Merlin's sake! Stick the sheet to the bed if you don't want her to get up until you've left the room; it's what I do."

Grumbling as he left his cousin to clean up his clutter – he had little interest and even less talent for interior decorating  _before_  his twelve-year stay in prison, let alone after – he exited the room and began climbing the stairs. His mood lifted slightly as he passed a large landscape painting hanging in the stairwell where his mother's portrait had once been. In return for keeping the wretched thing, Kreacher, the Blacks' house-elf, had been willing if not exactly enthused to remove the reminder of the foul old harpy from its place.  _Thank Merlin he was agreeable that day; I shudder to think how much longer the restoration would have taken had I given in to my first impulse and_ Confringo _'ed the damn thing, wall and all._

He continued to the third and top floor before turning to the right. This level of the building had once provided space for numerous members of the family, but as of today, only he and Jen actually resided in the house. Andromeda, along with her husband Ted and her daughter Dora, lived just outside Lancaster while Narcissa called a manor in the Wiltshire countryside home. Sirius was unsure how much longer  _that_ arrangement would last, however; her husband, Lucius Malfoy, had been Voldemort's right-hand man in the previous war, and he doubted anyone had supplanted the blond dandy while the Dark Lord had been out of commission.

_At least she knows she can stay here if it gets too bad. Mr. No-Nose didn't have the best of tempers thirteen years ago, and Jen escaping his clutches must have brassed him off royally. Let's just hope he doesn't take it out on Cissy; for all that she's a pervert and a blind bigot, she's also one of us. Not to mention, if Jen found out her 'Auntie' was murdered, there's no telling how she'd react. Well, except_ _**violently** _ _; the dark witches in this family are traditionally good at that._

Sirius's feet stopped immediately outside his goddaughter's closed door, and he hesitated for a moment before knocking firmly. "Jen! Time to get up!" When there was no response, he repeated the call before reluctantly twisting the knob, the door slowly creaking open.

Sticking his head through the crack, he barely withheld a laugh at the girl sprawled facedown on top of her bed; to his relief, she was clothed in the same dress she had been wearing the previous day. Loki, her raven familiar, aimed a piercing glare at him from the headboard before taking wing and flying out her open window.  _She must have been truly exhausted yesterday. I almost feel sorry for having to wake her. Almost._ Smirking, he conjured a large balloon filled with ice-cold water. "Come on, Jen, you better get up on your own before I have to do something  _unpleasant_." She did not stir at his soft, singsong voice, so he giggled and levitated the heavy balloon across the room until it hung a couple of feet above her. "Last chance. Three… two…  _one_ … Fire!"

The projectile fell and burst, soaking her with its contents.

He laughed uproariously. "That's what you get for staying up… all… Jen?" To his consternation, the young witch had not responded to his prank in the slightest.  _That's weird. If there's one way of getting her out of bed, it's splashing her._  Tiptoeing warily towards her – it was entirely possible that she was feigning sleep in order to lure him nearer before she retaliated – he shook her shoulder only to jerk his hand back from her scorching flesh. It felt like her blood was literally  _boiling_  in her veins.

"Jen!" Unmindful of her drenched outfit, he grabbed the collar of her dress and rolled her onto her back. Now that he was close enough, he could see just how red and clammy her skin was, as well as how wet the sheets underneath her were.  _Was she sweating the whole night? Why didn't she tell me she wasn't feeling well?_  " _Ennervate_!"

A brief spasm told him the spell had worked, and he leaned over to listen when he noticed her lips moving. "…hurts. Put it out. Burns. Bright. Stop…" With a shudder, her slurred voice ended and she grew still again.

"Come on, stay with me.  _Ennervate_!" The spell did nothing, the girl too deep in her fevered somnolence. Desperate now, he screamed, "Kreacher!"

The miserable being popped into the room at his call. "Master bes—" The house-elf's eyes opened wide as he noticed what was happening. "Miss Jen!"

"Andi's in the kitchen. Bring her up here. Now!"

For once not arguing, Kreacher snapped his fingers and disappeared, almost immediately returning with the woman. Taking in the scene, Andi whipped her wand from the pocket of her cream robes and shoved him out of the way. A long, elaborate incantation soon had numbers formed from different colored smokes rising from Jen's skin. "That can't be right."

"What is it?" he demanded.

"Her temperature's much too high, but that's the only measurement that makes any sense. Heart rate, breathing, blood pressure; they're all a fraction of normal, let alone what they should be with her this sick. Has she been unconscious the whole time?"

"A reviving spell had her babbling for a couple of seconds, but that's it, and it didn't work the second time," Sirius said, worry twisting in his belly like snakes. He had never heard of any magical disease behaving like this, and precious few Muggle diseases could affect witches and wizards. Those that did were either inconsequential nuisances or invariably fatal. "What the hell is wrong with her?"

"Don't ask me; I'm not a Healer!" Another flick of her wand caused her to gasp in surprise. "That's why… She's completely magically exhausted. I can't even find her core. It's like she doesn't have a drop of magic left in her."

His eyes widened. "Which explains why she's been so tired lately; her magic's been fighting this off. Do you think it's something she picked up when she was kidnapped?"

"Could be?" Andi answered weakly with a shrug of her shoulders. "There's no way to know. The best thing to do would be to just cool her down; that fever is what will hurt her if we can't stop it."

"Kreacher will prepare a cold bath," the old elf offered, surprising both humans that he was still in the room, before he popped away.

Sirius blinked for a moment. "…Thanks, Kreacher. Should we take her to St. Mungo's after we get her temperature lowered so they can figure out what's going on?"

"You mean where the first thing they'll do is shove a Pepper-Up down her throat and then be shocked with nothing happens?" she shot back. "Jen will get better only to be asked question after question about why potions don't affect her. I doubt she'd accept a simple apology after that."

 _Good point_. Nodding at the wisdom of her advice, he asked, "Why  _don't_  they work on her? She's never told me."

"Nor me, but Poppy fire-called me a couple of weeks ago about this very topic. She said Jen's core is oddly shaped and possibly interferes with how the potions are meant to access her magic, which is as good an explanation as any. Of course, she also thinks potions make Jen throw up rather than sit around pointlessly, so we have to take that finding with a grain of salt."

"Let's hope Jen can keep her in the dark about that. Poppy does  _not_  like being lied to." A faint smile appeared on Sirius's face then as he fondly recalled having to go to her after one particularly furious spat pitting James and himself against Snivellus in their fifth year and trying to make her believe the enormous reindeer antlers growing from their heads and their feet switching positions had been a joke gone horribly wrong. The old battle-axe had seen through their deception and given them detention, though at least she had not told McGonagall what they had done. He had already been in enough trouble after the  _very_ poorly thought out decision to sneak firewhiskey into the dorms.

Unaware of his reminiscing, the brunette blushed faintly. "I  _might_  have let that misconception stand. It's just a little white lie, right?"

"True, very true." A pop, and Jen disappeared, leaving only her dress to fall heavily to the floor. Curiosity making itself known, he asked, "How do you even know those spells you used on her? Were you training to be a mediwitch at one point?"

"Oh, no. You see, Metamorphs respond very  _strangely_ to many diseases, and most of the time it's best to just treat their symptoms until they recover on their own. Dora's Child Healer was more than happy to teach me a few of the basics about how to monitor her."

He nodded with a sigh. "That's all we can do for Jen right now, too, isn't it?"

"Probably."

The pair spent the rest of the day caring for the youngest member of their family, which mostly consisted of simply switching out cold compresses and maintaining the cooling charm they erected around her bed. Her fever finally broke right at sundown, allowing her to slip into a deeper sleep. Sirius and Andi exchanged one last significant look before the woman departed for her own house; despite how independent the girl was, they would make sure she got some proper rest until she had fully recovered.

* * *

Jen reluctantly pulled her attention away from her book when the wards informed her of their newly arrived guest. "Dumbledore's here." The doorbell rang as if to confirm her declaration.

"I wonder what in Merlin's name he wants now," Sirius muttered before rising from his desk. "Shall we adjourn to the drawing room?"

With great reluctance, she accepted the man's offered hand and let him pull her to her feet. She did not like having to rely on  _anyone_ , but she was still suffering the effects of her annual fever two days earlier. Every year since an old Haitian witch named Elsie had inducted her into the macabre mysteries of Voodoo, she spent a full twenty-four hours unconscious and ill, struggling to complete such simple actions as even breathing. Just as the winter solstice was the day when dark magic was at its strongest, the summer solstice was a time for those of light magic.

As a black witch, the darkest of the dark, that one day saw her normally immense power reduced to nothing, saw her laid there helpless and weak. She  _despised_ being weak.

Moving slowly in deference to her unsteady steps, Sirius guided her down the hallway to the drawing room, both ignoring the bell's increasingly demanding rings. This room was where all but the closest of friends were received, hence its proximity to the front door and its connection to the Floo Network. A wave of the man's wand had the furniture inside rearranging itself, a soft sofa and a single unpadded chair facing each other in the middle of the floor while all the other seats took up positions along the walls. Settling Jen into the couch before plopping down on her left side, he called, "Kreacher, could you show our guest in?!"

"He is not happy with you right now," she commented as her magical sonar reported the house-elf downstairs in the kitchen practically throwing a pan into the oven and popping to the door. Sirius simply laughed at her words. "Honestly, I'm surprised you're having Kreacher bring Dumbledore to us. Being escorted by a servant is quite the snub."

The Head of the Blacks nodded and leaned back into the cushions. "Oh, trust me, I know. Before serving time in Azkaban, even just last summer, I would have greeted him myself, and he knows it; this is a good way of pointing out just how much of my respect the stunts he pulled over the past year have cost him. The chair is to reinforce that message. I'm actually interested to see if he conjures one of his normal squishy armchairs rather than sit in it."

"Because by doing so, he rejects our hospitality," she said, the plan unfolding in her mind. "You will have already shown that you have a grievance with him, so that would be yet another bridge burned. I presume his persistent demands for me to go back to the Potters are why I'm not just at your right hand, but seated right next to you?"

"Exactly. You're a Black now, whether he likes it or not. The sooner he gets that through his skull, the better."

"Very impressive. Here I thought Aunt Cissy was the politician in the family."

"Who do you think taught me all this stuff?" he asked with a broad grin. She stifled her chuckles when the door opened and the subject of their conversation entered the room. "Mr. Dumbledore, we were not expecting you today."

"I do apologize, my boy. I have been so busy recently that I forgot to call ahead." He hesitated a brief moment before lowering himself into the chair set out for him. "You seem to have been able to prepare for my arrival despite the short notice, however."

Sirius nodded but said nothing.

The old man sighed. "Very well, then. I take it you received the message I left you?"

"A simple feather isn't much of a message, but if you were trying to tell me that you were reactivating the Order, yes, I got it."

"The Order?" Jen asked in confusion.

"Order of the Phoenix, a group founded to stand against Voldemort during the War. Well, the  _last_  war, technically, since we seem to be in a second one now," Sirius qualified. "Basically, we went wherever the Death Eaters showed up and tried to limit the damage they caused and help the DMLE capture them if we could."

Understanding hit as she recalled something he had said following her own encounter with the Dark Lord. "So  _that's_  why you were dueling Voldemort that one time you told me about. I had wondered why you would do something like that."

"No, I dueled him because I was young and stupid and in denial of my own mortality. He disabused me of that last notion real quick."

Dumbledore coughed lightly to regain their attention. "Indeed, though ultimately you did survive and became wiser for it. And may I say, Miss Black, that it heartens me to hear that you have lost the fear you had just a week ago of speaking Voldemort's name."

"Oh, I was never afraid," she denied airily. "I just noticed how everyone else reacted and decided it was pointless to terrify them all unnecessarily. We all knew to whom I was referring, so saying  _'You-Know-Who'_ instead of  _'Voldemort'_  made little difference."

"That ingrained panic is the precise reason why those of us with courage  _must_  call him by that name. Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself."

She smiled with all the false politeness she could dredge up. "A nice, rational argument. Unfortunately, fear – and a fear reinforced by society, even more so – is innately  _irrational_. All the logic in the world cannot stop that instinctual, visceral response."

"Both of you have very good points," Sirius interjected, cutting off the headmaster's response. "Nevertheless, I very much doubt that you came here to debate philosophy with my scion."

"True, true. You might have guessed this already, but I was hoping that you would be willing to join the fight against the Dark once again. Despite your loss to Voldemort himself, I seem to recall you being a talented Hit Wizard who was quite capable of fighting nearly any of his Inner Circle to at least a draw." Dumbledore smiled congenially to reinforce the praise.

"Unfortunately, I shall have to disappoint you." The old politician stilled at Sirius's words. "I have responsibilities now that I did not back then, responsibilities that require me to think of others before myself. I am unsure if the interests of the House of Black would be best served by allying ourselves with your organization."

Jen forced herself not to join their unwanted guest in gaping at her godfather in surprise. He had accepted the knowledge that  _she_  was a dark witch, and his opinions in the Wizengamot were often more along the views of the Neutral Houses than those of the Light bloc, but she knew that he held nothing but disgust and hatred for the Death Eaters, which was part of the reason he and Lucius had avoided each other over the past year despite Cissy spending most of her time in Grimmauld Place.

 _For all that he is an incorrigible prankster, he truly does take his role as our Head of House seriously_ , she thought, smiling in her mind at the unintentional pun.  _When Cissy last visited, she mentioned that Arcturus had carefully navigated the waters of neutrality so he wouldn't commit the family to the losing side of the war, whichever side that wound up being. I can tell that part of him_ _ **wants**_ _to rejoin this band of do-gooders, but as he said, he's putting the rest of us first._

Dumbledore swiftly shook his head as if to convince himself that he had misheard the other man. "I do not think you understand the gravity of your situation. Voldemort does not forgive, and he does not forget. You can try to stay out of his way, but he will want revenge for your actions against him in the last war, to say nothing of Miss Black's a mere week ago. He  _will_ come for you sooner or later. Do you honestly not want friends to come to your aid when he decides that time has arrived?"

"I understand just fine. What  _you_  seem to have forgotten, however, is that our family is known for having some of the best warwards outside of Gringotts, and that reputation is not without merit. They will be able to hold him off long enough that he loses interest or, in the worst case scenario, give us enough time to flee to safer climes." Sirius crossed his arms and leaned back, a position their family had come to understand meant that further discussion would be naught but a waste of time.

"Very well," the leader of the Light replied reluctantly. "If you are so insistent on staying here, might I offer to add a protection of my own? The Longbottoms and Potters have both taken refuge under the Fidelius Charm, and I would be more than willing—"

"No."

"Whatever do you mean by  _'No'_ , my dear?" Dumbledore asked her.

She pushed her flare of anger back to the depths of her mind, no matter how deserved it was. "Exactly what it sounds like. Should we decide to use that charm, we will cast it ourselves. Under  _no_ circumstances will we give the authority to decide who may or may not enter  _our home_  to anyone who does not bear the name of Black."

_Especially not when that unnamed person has seemingly made it his goal to force me back into the Potters' arms; if we let you erect the Fidelius, you would almost certainly make yourself the Secret Keeper, and the very next day we would find them moving in. I would sooner kill them and you in such a manner that even Voldemort fears my wrath than meekly surrender to them so much as a scrap of power over me. For the Baron's sake, I'd watch Britain and all within her borders_ _**burn** _ _before I capitulated to their demands and retook that abhorrent surname._

"You tell him," Sirius praised quietly. Turning back to their 'guest', he said, "Was there anything else you needed to speak to us about? Surely there are other items on your agenda more important than merely making small talk."

Dumbledore stood from the uncomfortable chair, straightening his robes with sharp movements. He obviously recognized the dismissal for what it was, and equally clear was that he was not happy about it. "Actually, there was one more topic I wished to discuss, specifically with you, Miss Black. What condition do you have that required Madam Pomfrey to prescribe ongoing treatment?"

"I do not understand how that is any of your concern, Headmaster. Did you learn about this because she asked you to pass along a message to me?"  _The only thing it could possibly be about is the scar-reducing potion I've been using to regain my sight. She_ _ **did**_ _say that I would probably be fully recovered before I finished this month's vial, and I didn't exactly give her the chance to check my progress the last time I was in her 'care'._

He smiled faintly, the expression devoid of any sort of humor. "On the contrary, if your disorder poses a risk to other students, it  _is_  my concern."

 _You just won't let it go, will you, you wrinkled bastard? Fine, two can play at this game._  "I would be quite surprised if my yeast infection could ever be considered a public health issue." He tried and failed to suppress a sickened grimace at her words; considering his advanced age, she knew he would be extremely uncomfortable the moment she so much as implied that her visits with the nurse related to her genitals in any way. "As I said, nothing you needed or wanted to know. My message, if you please?"

"Ugh… She wanted to let you know that you should continue taking your potion every other or every third day from now on and then stop once there is no further improvement. You have one final checkup with her when you return to Hogwarts. If you don't mind, I think I'll take my leave now."

A loud crack split the air; Narcissa wavered on her feet for a moment before falling. Jen threw herself out of the sofa to catch the woman before she could dash her head against the hardwood floor.  _What the hell?! Her core is practically empty; I'm shocked she even had enough power left to teleport. What has she been up to for the past few days?!_

Exhaustion was not the only problem; her aunt's arms and face were littered with cuts, and the fingertips of her right hand had been abraded to the point that they, too, were oozing blood. Someone had been working her over, and hate raced through Jen's body as the feel of Lucius's core rose from her memory. He had been in the graveyard when Voldemort returned, and in fact was one of the Dark Lord's chief lieutenants.  _If I find out that he had_ _ **anything**_ _to do with this, he's a_ _ **dead man**_ _._  Magic amplifying her voice to echo down to the kitchen, she cried, "Kreacher, get Andi!"

The elf, apparently hearing the distress in her words, vanished.

"Allow me to help, Miss Black," Dumbledore ordered, whipping out of his pocket what she could only assume was his wand. This was the first time she had ever payed attention to his focus, and to her surprise and disconcertment, she felt nothing. It was as if there was a long, thin void in her sonar.

"We don't  _want_  your help!" She lightened the weight of Cissy's body and spun so that she knelt between her aunt and that inhuman wand. The last object she encountered that she could not feel through the world's magical currents was a pendant depicting Holda, more commonly called Mother Earth, that her friend and housemate Luna Lovegood had offered her immediately prior to the final Task of the Triwizard Tournament. That little trinket was supposedly protective in nature, but just a second or two of contact had come close to killing her due to it being imbued with white magic. Without knowing exactly  _whose_  hand had crafted the old man's wand, there was no way she would permit him to cast even a single spell on any member of her family.

No matter who was responsible, it was likely better to keep him away from them anyway. Of the fourteen entities who could have made it, half of them hated her for what she was while the others did not concern themselves with trivial issues like  _'collateral damage'_.

"Miss Black, that is no way to speak to someone willing to assist you. Don't allow your pride—"

"Enough!" Sirius turned to her and gestured towards the stairwell. "Take Cissy to an empty room until Andi gets here. Dumbledore, it's time for you to go. Feel free to use our Floo to return to Hogwarts."

"My boy, surely you understand—"

"I understand that you need to leave. Now."

She tuned the pair out as she carried her aunt up to the third floor, repairing the woman's wounds while she walked. She could find nothing wrong with Cissy beyond the obvious, but Andi had recently displayed a far more extensive grasp of magical healing than she herself had. Better that the elder of her aunts come and say she had fixed everything than risk harming one of the most important people in her life because she assumed she knew better and missed something. Not even she was quite  _that_  arrogant.

The last of Cissy's cuts and scrapes healed, Jen gently laid her on the bed in the room next to her own. Now it was just a matter of waiting. Waiting for Andi's diagnosis. Waiting for her aunt to awaken. Waiting for the name of her attacker.

And waiting for the best time to pay the guilty party a little visit. It might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, but this debt  _would_  be repaid.

* * *

A banishing charm flung Narcissa into the unyielding stone wall. Slumping to the ground, she remained motionless and closed her eyes until they were just barely cracked. Perhaps if her abuser thought she was unconscious, he would leave her.

Thankfully, her deception seemed to work, or perhaps he had just grown bored. Either way, the Dark Lord Voldemort lowered his wand with an irritated huff. "Foolish stubbornness truly does run in your family, doesn't it? I ask for a simple thing, and yet you continue to refuse me. Oh well, no matter. I have all the time in the world, and none can hold out against me forever. You  _will_  comply with my desires sooner or later." The hem of his robes fluttered in his wake as he walked calmly out of the room.

From his position beside the open door, Lucius sighed. "You can stop with the act, Narcissa."

Her eyes shot open, and she watched him warily. "How did you know I was awake?"

"After being married to you for 22 years, I should hope I can tell when you're pretending to sleep." He pushed off from the wall and strode halfway across the room towards her. "What I can't understand is what you mean to accomplish with this show of opposition. His patience is not limitless; just do as our Lord com—"

" _Your_  Lord, Lucius,  _not_  mine," she snarled. He jerked away from her, shocked at the vehemence in her voice. "He can cajole me all he wants, torture me all he wants, but I  _will not_  take his Mark. Not now, not ever. I would rather die."

"What has come over you? Before this past week, you never expressed any disagreement with our goals. Has spending all your time with your cousin caused you to develop a sudden fondness for Muggles and Mudbloods?"

She forced herself to her feet and glared at him. "You are not normally this dense. I don't care about them; what I care about is that  _he tried to murder my niece!_  If you can honestly stand there and think that I would  _ever_  turn against my family, you do not know me nearly so well as you think you do!"

"Don't be a fool, Narcissa!" he protested. "I have done all I can to persuade him not to harm you, but I can't protect you for much longer if you  _don't bend_. Four days you have tried his patience, but today he finally hexed you; what will your continued obstinance earn tomorrow?" The blond crossed the remaining distance and grabbed her shoulders. "You are either with him or against him, you know this. Don't throw your life away for your pride in a dying House!"

Her anger roaring in her ears, she shoved her husband away. "Better to perish serving my House than betray it for a man who was defeated by a mere babe! Would you sacrifice Draco were you in my place?!"

"If the Dark Lord asked it of me, yes!" Narcissa gaped in astonishment and disgust at his admission. "The Dark Lord is the only one, the  _only_  one, who can save our world from the Muggle invasion. I did what I could to counter Dumbledore's obsession with those vile apes in the Ministry, but he is too strong. Buying off Cornelius helped some, but he's just the Minister; he can twist the Wizengamot's orders, but he can't defy them. The Light Houses worship Dumbledore, and the Neutral Houses fear him. If we don't get rid of him and his sympathizers, our society will crumble. Is that what you want?"

"The House of Black has existed for over a thousand years, changing with the times as need be. We can survive an influx of Muggle ideas. If House Malfoy cannot do the same, that is your problem."

Lucius sneered. "You are a Malfoy, too, or have you forgotten?"

"By marriage alone." She held up one hand, crimson leaking from the many shallow lacerations Voldemort's scouring charm had inflicted on her pale skin. "It is Black blood that flows through my veins. It was a Black womb from which I was born. It is Black teachings that have guided me all my life. In any conflict between Malfoy and Black, you  _know_  where I will stand, and your servitude to the Dark Lord has created exactly that."

"Fine. If you are so determined to die for your birth family, who am I to stand in your way?" He walked to the open door and looked back at her. "I will not come here tomorrow, nor the day after. I can only hope you open your eyes before the Dark Lord decides to close them forever." The door slammed shut behind him.

"My eyes  _are_  open, Lucius." She moved to the rug in the middle of the floor and dropped to her knees on the unforgiving stone. Though she doubted it was due to her husband's pleas as he had convinced himself, Voldemort  _had_  been treating her with kid gloves thus far, even placing furniture and a small fire pit in what she could tell had once been an empty dungeon.  _It's because he knows that I'm the only way he can get to Jen. She killed his familiar, escaped his grasp; of course he wants revenge. Unfortunately for him, she is well protected in Grimmauld Place, and Andi's family would run before he could enter shouting distance. The only one of us he could reach is me, thanks to Lucius._  A dark growl clawed its way out of her throat as she recalled returning to Malfoy Manor on Monday evening, only to be greeted by a stunner from the Dark Lord. She had woken in this room without her wand, and after several attempts, she had accepted that he had anticipated her plan to escape and so had erected at least an anti-Apparation jinx, possibly even an actual ward, over the entire dungeon.

She rolled up the carpet and stared at the large eihwaz rune, each line as wide and deep as her middle finger, that she had been hiding. Despite the fact that she was a prisoner, she was also a Pureblood, and so whoever was charged with her care had provided her with a magically reinforced metal fork rather than the wooden spoon they would normally give Muggleborns to eat with, assuming those captives had anything at all. It took a great deal of effort and time, forcing her to work every minute she was not fitfully sleeping or being 'recruited', but she had finally managed to carve the rune into the hard floor. She was quite thankful for the long stretch of solitude Voldemort had given her a couple of days earlier; without it, she would not yet be finished.

 _I_ ** _really_** _wish I had paid more attention in Ancient Runes_ , she complained, not for the first time. There were undoubtedly better languages to use for her jailbreak than Futhark, but as she had only taken Runes through OWL level, her options were decidedly limited. Ogham was only good for bodily enhancement, and she could not for the life of her – possibly literally – remember any of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, which were used primarily for warding and therefore exactly what she needed.  _No use crying over spilled potion, though. Eihwaz is good enough for my purposes; the way it destabilizes magic makes it more or less a runic_ Finite _charm, so with enough power it should break through the jinx. I just hope the Dark Lord didn't throw a ward on me instead, or I might not be able to get away._

Runes normally required a wand to activate them, but since Voldemort had taken hers away, she was forced to  _improvise_. Grabbing the fork from under the small bed, she prodded her recent wounds and forced them to bleed anew; that fluid she then smeared over the sides of her rune, ignoring the scrapes she picked up on her fingertips. Blood and crystals could be used to funnel energy into runic scripts, though they were of course inferior to the  _Epoto_  charm. She pushed herself from her crouched position up to her knees, the blood-loss making her slightly light-headed, and stuck her abused index finger into the rune. She muttered, "If you're listening, please let this work."

With a bit of effort, she pushed her magic into the symbol. The blood burst into cool blue light, followed by an ear-ringing snap that heralded the destruction of the spell holding her prisoner. Shouts echoed down the hallway, Death Eaters hearing her break through the defenses, and she staggered to her feet. She was so  _close_  to her freedom. Spinning on her heel and momentarily spotting Lucius as he burst through the door, she embraced the familiar squeezing sensation of Apparation.

Landing in the the middle of the drawing room of Grimmauld Place, she barely had time to see Jen and Sirius's astonished expressions before she passed out.

* * *

**Silently Watches out.**


	2. Her Mother's Eyes

**Thanathos:**  Yes, I am aware that the word "rune" refers to Germanic scripts, primarily Elder and Younger Futhark. That said, I have a very hard time figuring out exactly what Hogwarts students would be doing in that class after third year should they be using that definition because with only 24 symbols, they should be able to learn it all in a single year easily. In my head-canon, Ancient Runes cover  **any**  set of symbols that can be used for manipulating magic.

 **Frosty Wolf:**  This story is the second in either a trilogy or tetralogy; it depends on how much I do for sixth and seventh years.

 **arapto:**  Dark witches don't spend the entire summer solstice sick;  _black_  witches do. The other members of House Black don't know this, however, because there hasn't been a black magic practitioner in their family in centuries.

**I have some good news for all of my faithful readers! Now that** _**Consequence of Misunderstandings** _ **is complete, I'll be able to post new chapters of this story every other week rather than every third.**

**All right, guys, seriously?** _**ONE-HUNDRED NINETEEN** _ **reviews for the very first chapter? Thank you all so much! Maybe I should start letting you have more input if this is the result. Speaking of said input, the most popular suggestion for the fifth Ancient Runes language was Chinese, which I have to admit I somehow forgot about when writing last chapter, so now the fifth-years will learn Egyptian while NEWT students cover Sumerian cuneiform and Lesser Sealing Script. Chapter 1 has been changed to reflect this.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did nearly everyone who knew Harry's parents attribute solely his eye color to Lily, seemingly in all other ways casting him as a clone of James? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 2  
** **Her Mother's Eyes**

Jen sat silently in Narcissa's room, her attention drawn far more to the still-unconscious woman than to the third-year Charms textbook in her lap. Andi had said that the older witch would likely wake some time this morning, and she wanted a few answers.

Namely, who had been  _stupid_  enough to put her aunt in this state.

"She's still out of it?"

She nodded, not turning to face Sirius as he walked through the door and pulled up a chair next to hers. After several moments, he sighed and said, "You know that just sitting here isn't going to make her heal any faster, right?"

"It also won't make her healing take any  _longer_ , though, will it?" He shook his head. "So there is no reason why I  _shouldn't_  stay here."

A shrug of his shoulders told her that he had no response to that. She returned her mind to her book while he simply cradled his chin in his hands. Her fingers running over the text caused a flat voice to sound in her head.  _"The Reducing Charm, the partner to the Engorgement Charm, would therefore return the enlarged book, toad, or whatever to its original size. You will be learning both charms together—"_

"She needs to hurry and wake up. There are some bills for the Wizengamot I could really use her advice on— Ow!"

"A  _little_  decorum, if you please?" she growled lightly, leaving the Head of the Black family to rub his arm where her thin lightning bolt had zapped him. "She is far more than just a political advisor."

He stuck his nose in the air pompously. "I know that  _quite_  well, girlie, but just because she's lying there isn't any reason I can't crack a joke or twenty."

"By the Baron, you are so immature." Jen shook her head in disbelief. "And to think, you almost had me convinced yesterday that you were  _respectable_."

"Respectable?" asked a weak voice. Both Blacks whipped their heads towards Cissy as she smiled faintly at them. "If you ever start acting like that, I'll be on the first Portkey out of Britain."

"Cissy!"

She slowly nodded at their twin cries. "How long have I been unconscious?"

Pulling his watch from his pocket, Sirius said, "A tad less than seventeen hours. What in Merlin's name happened?"

"The Dark Lord happened." Her audience became even more focused at those words, if such a thing was possible. "He was waiting for me when I went home on Monday. I barely had a chance to see him before he stunned me."

"Why? What did he want?"

Jen lowered her head as the answer appeared in her mind. "Me."

"Probably." Cissy tried to push herself to a sitting position, gratefully accepting Sirius's help when she was about to lose what little strength she had managed to gather. "What he  _said_  he wanted was for me to take his Mark, but yes, I expect he was going to order me to bring you to him the moment the magic had settled."

"He was torturing you for  _four days_?" Sirius asked breathlessly. "Not that I'm not glad you're okay, but how in the world are you not… you know…"

"A mindless husk like the Longbottoms?" He grimaced and nodded. "Because he wasn't actually torturing me for all that time. For three days, he was trying every non-violent trick in his grimoire to persuade me to join him. I'm just glad I got out when I did; yesterday was nothing more harmful than a few scouring charms and being banished into a wall, but I don't think I want to know what he had in mind for today."

"And just where was Lucius during all this?" Jen demanded.

"Watching. He had to let the Dark— Voldemort into the Manor, and his only advice after seeing our 'discussions' was to stop being  _'foolishly obstinate'_ and accept the Mark like the  _honor_  he thinks it is. Speaking of which…" Turning to Sirius, she continued in a strange tone, almost a plea, "My Lord, a daughter of the Blacks seeks sanctuary in the arms of her family. Might you take her under your aegis?"

The wizard sighed softly before he answered formally, "The Head of this House hears her words. For what reason does this daughter require our aid?"

"Her husband has abandoned her, thrown her to enemies of the House. Enemies whose hands she barely managed to escape, and at great risk to her life. To return to him now would surely see her pass beyond the Veil."

"A grave accusation, one a true daughter of this House would not make lightly. Our family cannot ignore this plea and let such a fate befall her. May this child find shelter and succor in the House of her birth once more."

Cissy smiled from her position leaning against the wall. Sirius slumped in his chair, his shoulders heavy with yet another burden. Jen cleared her throat and commented, "This scion dearly hopes an explanation will soon be forthcoming."  _In other words, what the bloody_ _ **hell**_ _just happened?_

"My taking the Malfoy name when Lucius and I married is more than just a social convention," the older witch explained. "While I have been and will always be a member of this House, so long as I am Narcissa Malfoy, the House of Malfoy has primacy over me. Should Lucius as the Head of House Malfoy demand that I return to Wiltshire, Sirius refusing him could be construed as kidnapping."

 _That is all sorts of messed up_ , the youngest member of the House of Black noted in the safety of her own mind. She could generally accept and adjust to the eccentricities that came with adoption into nobility, but there were times when she simply had to gape in astonishment at the twisted sense that went into some of the societal rules she now had to follow. "And this dialogue of yours?"

Sirius answered her question this time. "A formal request for asylum.  _Now_ , if Voldemort wants her back in his clutches, he'll have to take her by force. I'll ask Dora to file the parchmentwork directly since she's a member of the DMLE, and between Narcissa's or my memories and, if worst comes to worst, your signature on an affidavit as a witness, Lucius won't have a leg to stand on."

"Of course, it isn't all sunshine and roses," Cissy groused. "Because I'm taking refuge here, I can't go back to Malfoy Manor for any of my things. I don't even have my wand, for Merlin's sake!"

"Can't Kreacher get her belongings for her?"

The wizard shook his head. "Nothing at her home; those are the property of House Malfoy, and since he would be acting as our agent, legally it's theft. Her wand, though, is a different story. I highly doubt even the staunchest traditionalists on the Wizengamot would consider  _that_  to belong to Lucius."

"Except we don't know if he has it," the woman said. "The—  _Voldemort_  might very well have kept it with him, and even if we did want to risk sending Kreacher to take it back, I don't know where he had me imprisoned."

"So we go to Ollivander to get you a replacement until we can figure out how to reclaim your original wand," Sirius offered. "It's not an ideal solution, I know, but it's probably the safest one."

Cissy nodded. "You actually make a good point, unbelievable as that sounds." His canine whine brought a smile to both witches' faces. "Now, Jen, I've been wondering this since I woke up. Why in the world did you cut your fringe off?"

She smiled, brushing her fingertips against the short hair that no longer hid her blindfold as it had done throughout her year at Hogwarts. "Madam Pomfrey sent me a message via nosy old bastard yesterday before you arrived. I'm supposed to spend alternate days on my potion now, so I figured I could use the days I  _don't_  take it getting reacquainted with seeing for longer periods of time."

"So you're still wearing your blindfold… why?"

"I'm sorry, I was a  _little_  distracted by my aunt being unconscious, not to mention that I might have wanted her here and awake when I took it off," she snapped back at Sirius's question. Huffing, she undid the knot of the fabric wound round her eyes and stared at the red cloth as it fell to her lap. Her newly unbound gaze swept over the room, each object she could feel with her sonar suddenly gaining a new dimension. "Wow."

She had been scrying for years, true, but even the replacement sight that technique granted her did not compare to seeing the world with her  _own two eyes_.

"May I?" Jen looked to the woman on the bed and drank in the pale skin and blue eyes of her aunt, even smiling a bit at the unusual white streaks marring her otherwise inky hair. Cissy returned the expression with a beam of her own. "If people thought you were a heartbreaker before, they have no idea what they're in for now."

"Of course she is. She's my goddaughter, after all!" Sirius crowed.

The girl ignored the mutt's barking as she brought one hand near her face. "I have to admit that I'm a little shocked. When I was younger, I distinctly remember needing glasses, but now I can actually see things closer than a hundred feet away."

"I'm not terribly surprised about that. Your mother always had excellent vision, easily good enough to offset any flaws you inherited from your father."

"Wait a minute. That makes no sense," the wizard slowly said. "How in the world would Lily's eyes matter if she had James's sight before? And how do you even know how good Lily's eyes are, anyway?"

She turned to him, grinning wickedly as his face rapidly grew cold and pale. "Does that answer your question?"

"H-How?" He spun around to face Cissy and growled, " _What_  did you  _do_?"

"Nothing I didn't agree to," Jen cut in airily. A twist of her wrist conjured a hand mirror, and looking into its depths, she admired the rich purple orbs that stared back.

* * *

" _Sirius, stay here and fill out the rest of the parchmentwork with Professor McGonagall. Dora, shouldn't you be at work?" At her mother's reminder, the now white-haired young woman yelped and ran over to the Floo. "We'll be back down for lunch, and then we should go ahead and run over to Diagon Alley for her school supplies."_

_Narcissa watched Andi grab one of Jen's arms and, realizing what thought was running through her elder sister's mind, latched onto the other. The pair then frogmarched the girl out of the drawing room and towards the stairs._

" _I_ _ **can**_ _walk on my own, you know."_

" _Ah, but you don't know_ _ **where**_ _we're going, so it's best that we guide you," came Andi's faintly mocking retort. "Wouldn't want you getting lost, after all."_

_A sharp force shoved Narcissa's hand away from Jen's limb, Andi suffering the same fate. "Between that aborted surprise of yours and your reticence now, I am_ _**not** _ _necessarily in the best of moods."_

" _Fine, fine, don't get your knickers in a twist," the piebald woman remarked, waving away the younger witch's complaints._

_Jen smirked. "Now Cissy, you talk as if you think I'm wearing any…"_

" _Just stop, both of you. It's too early in the day for me to handle your flirting." Both of them turned shocked faces to Andi as she opened the door to the library. "Jen, we actually have something rather important to talk to you about."_

" _Okay?" The teenager settled onto one of the couches and moved the book lying on the center cushion to the table beside her. "So what is this oh-so-important topic?"_

_Rather than take the other sofa, the two women conjured chairs and sat within arm's reach. Her nerves taut with sudden anxiety, Narcissa blurted, "Would you like to become a full member of the family?"_

" _I see. So you do not see me as one now, despite welcoming me into it yourself just last week?" Jen asked with pursed lips._

" _That's not what she meant," Andi denied, glancing sharply at her. The younger of the two sisters blushed at that rebuke. There was a reason she was the politician in the family; the iron control over her nervous tongue she had had to develop in her childhood and adolescence made her quite talented in spouting views that she did not necessarily believe. Unfortunately, she still slipped up, though thankfully that was only around family. "What she was_ _ **trying**_ _to ask was if you wanted to be a Black in more than just name."_

_**That** _ _caught Jen's attention. "And how would such a thing be possible?"_

" _Blood magic." Narcissa smiled as the girl's head swung back to her. "Yes, Andi and I have read_ Arte of the Succubus _, as well. In fact, I think most of our family does at some point or another, and possibly for the same reason, too. I_ _ **know**_ _that Sirius and I both thought it was erotica."_

" _Same here."_

" _Yep."_

And the Black tradition of perversion extends to yet another generation _. Shrugging her idle thoughts away, she continued, "There are a number of useful if legally frowned-upon spells and rituals in that book and its later volumes, but the one we are discussing at the moment is appropriately termed blood adoption."_

" _And this would, what? Just inexplicably turn me into a Black?"_

" _Well… not_ _ **inexplicably**_ _," she temporized. "You see, blood adoption was originally created as a way of taking in bastard children. If a wizard chooses to sow his wild oats hither and yon, there's always a chance that the product of one of his dalliances would wind up being an extremely powerful witch or wizard. In such a case, that wizard can bring that child into his household through blood adoption, turning him or her into a legitimate heir. Obviously, there is only one method to do this: he would have to replace all the traits the child inherited from his or her mother with those of the man's legal wife."_

_Jen's mouth dropped open in shock. "So you're suggesting that I give up one of the Potters as my parent and take a Black in their place?"_

" _Only if you want to, of course! It's just a suggestion to think on, and the offer—"_

" _When can we start?!"_

_Narcissa's own jaw snapped shut as her flush returned. How in Merlin's name had she seen Jen's eagerness to be rid of at least one parent who abandoned her and misinterpreted it for disdain? Clearly Draco's aversion to spending any time with her had caused her abilities to read teenagers to rust._

" _Now, if you want. All we have to do is pick the right parent," Andi said cryptically._

_Jen's enthusiasm evaporated as she frowned in Andi's direction. "Explain."_

" _You know that Sirius has made you his heir, yes?" At Jen's nod, the brunette continued, "Well, we can slot you into the line of succession so that that position becomes your birthright rather than simply a gift from him, which would also make your future ladyship unassailable. However, doing so means we have to be rather careful in how we do this."_

" _I'm not sure I follow," Jen murmured._

_Narcissa laid one hand on top of Jen's own. "The thing we have yet to mention is that blood adoption can only be done_ _**once** _ _; a second procedure would kill you. That means that Sirius becoming your blood father is right out."_

" _Why?"_

" _Because Lily Potter would still be your mother," answered Andi. "What's more, we would be claiming that she somehow gave birth to two children on the same day to two different fathers."_

_Jen nodded slowly. "All right, I can see how that would be difficult to explain away."_

" _Quite. Next in the line of succession would be Regulus, Sirius's brother, but that raises even_ _ **more**_ _questions. Since you were born on July thirty-first of 1980, you would have had to have been conceived in late October of '79. Reggie died in_ _ **March**_ _."_

" _So not only would Lily have gotten preggers by two men at the same time, one of them would have been a corpse, too," the girl laughed._

_A few chuckles escaping, Narcissa agreed, "Yes, and there is little point in such an obvious lie. So, we have to look farther along the family tree."_

_Jen's snickers slowed and stopped, and she cocked her head in curiosity. "How far down the tree?"_

_The two sisters looked at each other before the younger of the pair continued, "A bit of a ways. This is actually a good thing for you to know; if you're the heiress of this House, you'll be expected to be able to recite our genealogy from memory for at least the last few generations."_

" _You can consider this your first lesson," Andi said with a wicked grin. "So, Sirius is the current Lord Black, though childless, and obviously Regulus never had any kids of his own. Their father, Orion, was the second and last child of our former Lord, Arcturus; his sister Lucretia married Ignatius Prewett late in life and died without issue. Arcturus had two younger siblings, Lycoris and another Regulus, neither of whom married or had children. There were rumors that they were far too involved with each other to bother looking outside the family, if you know what I mean. These were the three children of Sirius the Seventh—"_

" _Sirius the_ _ **Seventh**_ _?" Jen interrupted._

" _The 'Ancient' in our House's title isn't just for show; we can reliably trace our lineage as far back as the eighth century, so after a while, we almost have to recycle names," replied Narcissa. "I'm actually very lucky in that regard considering that I'm only the third Narcissa in the family, but poor Andi is the twenty-first."_

" _I'm named after an entire galaxy; of_ _ **course**_ _we would keep using that name. Our sister Bellatrix has the second most common girl's name, if you were curious."_

_Jen's face smoothed in surprise. "I hadn't even thought of that, but the book I was reading this morning was written by a woman who called herself Bellatrix the Sixteenth."_

"Veela Colonies from a Pureblood Perspective _?" Andi asked, to which the girl nodded. "Yes, that was the last Bellatrix before ours. Getting back on track, Sirius the Seventh was the first of five children born to Phineas Nigellus Black, widely regarded as the least popular Headmaster of Hogwarts in recent memory due to his policy of exchanging higher marks for sexual favors. Phineas Nigellus also created the modern contraceptive potion. The second child was 'just Phineas' Black, who was disowned in… 1895?"_

" _I think so. '94 or '95," Narcissa agreed._

" _Anyway, he was disowned for supporting Muggle rights, specifically that Muggles who witness magic should not be Obliviated. After that is Cygnus the Ninth, who married Violetta Bulstrode and had three children: Pollux, Cassiopeia, and Dorea, who is actually your great-grandmother on your father's side. Pollux had three children of his own, named Walburga, Alphard, and yet another Cygnus. Walburga is Sirius's mother, so we can ignore her, and Uncle Alphard was disowned for giving Sirius some gold after he ran away when he was sixteen."_

" _And even if Sirius could bring him back into the family posthumously, he wouldn't have any children to worry about, anyway. He never developed an appreciation for the fairer sex."_

" _Cygnus the Tenth, however, is_ _ **our**_ _father, and as you know, he had three children, too: Cissy, me, and our elder sister Bellatrix."_

_The girl gave them an amiable nod. "I'll take your word for that; you lost me three or four generations ago."_

" _Don't worry, memorizing all this isn't impossible," Andi said kindly. "Father insisted that we learn the seven generations preceding us, and while it took us a few years, we were less than half your age and had absolutely no motivation to do so."_

" _It could be worse. Auntie Walburga made Sirius and Regulus learn the past twelve."_

" _Yes, well, Walburga was nothing if not a bitch. Remember that time when—"_

" _I hate to interrupt," Jen cut in, "but could we get back to the conversation at hand, please? At least for the moment?"_

_The sisters blushed, and Narcissa continued, "We probably should. So, Bella. Under normal circumstances, she would be next in line to be the Head of our House, but being sentenced to life in Azkaban disqualifies her for that position. It does_ _**not** _ _, however, disqualify any children she might have had_ _**before** _ _her imprisonment."_

It's a good thing Sirius captured Pettigrew and brought him to the DMLE _, she thought to herself as she considered the fact she just mentioned._ Had he not, the Wizengamot would never have overturned his conviction and made him eligible to be our Head, and with Andi still disowned and me already married but without a second child to take the name Black, it's likely that our family would have been declared extinct. I don't know that there are any of us left bearing the name except Sirius and Jen.

" _And_ _ **does**_ _she have any children?"_

" _Not yet," Andi said with a melancholy smile. "Interestingly enough, she went to Azkaban in November of '81. Were we to adopt you as her child…"_

" _I'd have been born before that date, making me the future Lady Black by both blood and the current Lord's choice," Jen finished._

" _Indeed. Since you would be 'born' out of wedlock, you would be required to take her maiden name, so there is no risk of you needing to extricate yourself from the Lestranges' legacy." Narcissa held up a finger. "And it gets_ _ **better**_ _. I have visited Bella occasionally since her imprisonment, and while she was not exactly a paragon of mental stability before the Dementors got their claws into her, she's even worse now. No one would believe her were she to deny ever giving birth to you." She paused for a moment as yet another advantage presented itself. "Not to mention, replacing Lily with Bella would elevate you from being a mere Halfblood to a Pureblood. Which would only be important for people outside the family who care about such things, of course," she hastily tacked on at the other woman's glare._

_It wasn't_ _**her** _ _fault than Andi chose to marry and have a child with a Muggleborn!_

" _Strange that you both are so eager to sell out your sister…"_

_The women shared another glance before Andromeda spoke. "While she_ _**is** _ _our sister and we therefore love her despite her personality and choices, we don't necessarily_ _**like** _ _her. Growing up, she was often sadistic, remorseless, and cruel, traits that Walburga praised and cultivated even as our own parents tried to force her to act in a more socially acceptable fashion. Being the route for you to join the family is probably the best thing she will have ever done in her life."_

" _So, after hearing that she was a madwoman, do you want Bella as your new mother?"_

* * *

"…Obviously, I said yes, and we performed the adoption right then and there."

Sirius leaned back into the drawing room couch and scrubbed his face with his hands. "That's just  _wonderful_ , you two, really. So now Jen's the only child of a  _psychotic, mass-murdering terrorist_. Truly a fantastic plan."

"And yet it  _still_  leaves me with fewer problems than being the abandoned twin sister of the Boy-Who-Lived would have dropped in my lap," the girl shot back.

"No, now you're just his  _half_ -sister."

"Is it my fault that James chose to have a forbidden romance with his sworn enemy?"

The Animagus tilted his head down to gaze unamusedly at her dark grin. "You're  _really_  going to run with that?"

"Our actual explanation involves Bellatrix pulling an  _Imperio-Obliviate_  combination," Narcissa answered from her seat beside Andromeda, who had Flooed in to help with the explanation when the two ladies realized exactly how upset he was. "He can't exactly  _deny_  that such a thing ever happened, after all. Not to mention, the worse we portray Bella, the easier time we'll have casting Jen as the classic ill-conceived bastard trying desperately to atone for her mother's atrocities. You know the public will just eat that up."

"And when both Potters claim that she's actually Lily's daughter?"

Jen snorted indelicately. "Like they'll ever be able to prove that. Don't you remember? Aunt Cissy couldn't find where they had filed a single form pertaining to my existence. I don't even have a bloody birth certificate! Between us already casting aspersions on the validity of James's memory and all the official parchmentwork supporting our own claims, the courts would inevitably side with us if it ever got that far." She looked down, a soft, quivering tone entering her voice. "I thought you'd be  _happy_  that we found a defense against them trying to take me away from the family."

"Don't even try to pull the whole woe-is-me routine, Jen; no one who knows you well will ever fall for it. You couldn't act pitiful to save your life." He sighed; it wasn't that he was displeased that they found a counter to Dumbledore and the Potters' plan to regain custody. It really wasn't. What troubled him was the exact counter they  _had_  found. "I'm just concerned about how much hatred you're going to bring down on yourself when people learn about your new heritage. We can protect you here, but you'll be on your own as soon as you return to Hogwarts."

"Let me handle the other students," she said, dismissing his concerns with a wave of her hand. "One, I'm the junior Triwizard champion; that may not give me the  _'eternal glory'_  we were promised, but it should last at least the summer. The sheep love their heroes. Two, I have close friends from all four houses and all three blood purities, not exactly the hallmark of someone who dreams of committing genocide in her spare time. Three, and to push me even farther from the attitude of my 'mother', I spent quite a bit of the year with the now second-year Ravens and Snakes organizing 'playdates' between them." She shrugged at the surprised looks the other Blacks were giving her. "I didn't  _plan_  on using that diversion this way – being Candyland's manager for so long left me with a bit of a soft spot for little kids, I guess – but it's certainly going to come in handy. Four, I'm not a conniving Slytherin, but just a bookish Ravenclaw. How much of a threat could I actually pose in the real world?

"And I can always curse anyone who really tries to start something with me, too," she added as an afterthought.

 _ **That's**_ _how much of a threat you can pose_. Sighing again, he asked a question that had been on his mind since the trio of witches began their tale. "So I get that without Lily as her mother in blood, Jen would no longer have the same eyes she did when she was little, but why didn't I notice any other changes after the adoption? And where did you even get Bellatrix's blood to begin with?"

"To answer your first question, there are a few reasons," Narcissa said. "As she was already fourteen by that point and therefore more or less fully grown, there wasn't much that  _could_  change. Hair, skin, and eye color, yes, and apparently her eyesight, but little else. Also, the changes would happen slowly, over a number of months, so you wouldn't have had any reason to notice. Besides, they were  _already_  practically identical; how much difference would giving her Bella's traits really make?"

"As for how we obtained her blood, it was from the family tree," continued Andi with a jerk of her thumb towards the tapestry covering the room's walls. "When I repaired my portrait where Walburga blasted me off and had you add Dora, I extracted just a little bit from her own. Since the adoption requires willingly given blood, and so does the tapestry, we had a loophole that saved us a visit to Azkaban."

"Assuming no one catches wind that you three used blood magic, or you'll have one-way trips there," he snarked.

Narcissa rolled her eyes. "Two-way, actually. Despite being borderline black in reality, blood magic is classified as Grade 2 dark magic by the Ministry. We would only be in there for ten years, and the case against Jen would probably be dismissed entirely considering the adoptee doesn't perform any actual magic during the procedure. That's  _if_  we're ever found out; should we need to admit to a blood adoption at all, we say we had it done inside Gringotts.  _Humans_ can't use blood magic legally, but the goblins  _can_."

"Which, again, we shouldn't ever have to do because no one can prove that we're lying," Jen finished. The conspirators then shared a grin, confident in their planning.

 _And I can't really blame them for feeling that way; short of everyone taking Veritaserum, which probably wouldn't happen in such a relatively minor custody case, they have their hoops covered._  "So what's the plan now?"

"Add Jen to the family tree and then prepare for the oncoming storm."

Nodding at Andi's suggestion, Sirius rose to his feet and beckoned Jen to come with him to the family crest situated in the middle of the tapestry. He tapped the emblem and intoned, "Let the House grow." At his solemn command, the image glowed with a dull green light and the silver threads forming the family motto of  _Toujours Pur_  shimmered brightly.  _And the family's Slytherin roots show themselves again_. "You just need to smear some blood over the sword, and the tapestry should take care of the rest."

"When you were talking about the family tree last summer, you weren't joking," she muttered as she ran a finger over her left palm. Crimson welled to the surface before she dragged her entire hand over the upright sword in the middle of the crest. The blade shone a particularly dark and ugly shade of red, and a disturbance at the other side of the room caused the four Blacks to move closer to it.

From the portrait of Bellatrix's head extended a second branch labeled  _'James Potter'_ , but this one did not curl around her as the first, signifying her childless marriage to Rodolphus Lestrange, did. Instead, it stretched out into the empty space just above the image of Dora with her ever-changing hair before growing a large flower. The flower glowed for several moments before wilting, the petals falling off and disappearing, and like a fruit swelling, a circle of holly leaves spread out to showcase a perfect likeness of Jen's face, complete with the grin that never failed to indicate when a plot was brewing in her devious mind. Finally, a strip of parchment faded into existence to proudly proclaim her name as  _'Jennifer Bellatrix Black'_ , as well as her date of birth.

The two women simultaneously nodded and draped their arms around Jen's neck. Narcissa pointed to the three portraits of the Black Sisters' children sitting in a row before saying reverently, "And the family is complete."

* * *

A knock on his door drew Sirius's attention from the scroll he had been reading with disgust. Already having a good idea of who it was, he called, "Come in!"

Sure enough, Narcissa walked into the room and sat delicately in her customary chair beside his desk. "Jen said you needed to speak to me."

"Yes, I do." He indicated the parchment he had just been reading. "After several days of looking and some help from Kreacher, I  _finally_  found Arcturus's copy of your betrothal contract."

She interrupted, "My contract? Why would you need that?"

"Let's say that Dumbledore or Danny Potter manages to defeat Voldemort again. Are you going to want to go back to Lucius afterwards?"

"…No, not really." Narcissa bit her lip for a few moments before she continued, "After telling me that he would be willing to sacrifice Draco on Voldemort's orders, to throw away the only member of his family that he has left, I don't know that I could ever trust or respect him even a little again."

Sirius wince went unnoticed. "I didn't think so, so I was hoping to find some way of annulling your marriage. It would get you out from under the shadow of his thumb faster than an outright divorce, not to mention it wouldn't require you to be in a specific place at a specific time where Voldemort could kidnap you again. While looking, I found out two things. First, Arcturus  _really_  wanted to get rid of you; this thing is almost completely in House Malfoy's favor."

"Sirius, I'm a pedophile with absolutely no sexual interest in adults," she said in a deadpan voice. "I needed lust potions in order to bed Lucius enough to conceive Draco. Arcturus knew that if that got out, there was no way I would ever find a suitable marriage, so the better terms he gave Cassius, the faster I could be betrothed."

"You needed potions just to have sex with Lucius?" the wizard asked, morbid curiosity pressing him on even as his good sense desperately shook its head. "Did he never figure out why?"

She shrugged sheepishly. "He  _asked_ , certainly, but I  _am_ a talented liar. I just convinced him that I'm purely a witch's witch."

"Oh," he muttered softly. "Anyway, there are exactly three ways to dissolve your marriage quickly and quietly. First, he could attempt to kill you; Arcturus was at least looking out for you that much. Second, he could do something that would cause his House to be censured and lose its Noble status—"

"Understandable, considering that Lucius is only the third Lord Malfoy," she stated with a sharp nod of her head. "Even being what I am, I deserve a proper match, and a common man just would not qualify."

He smiled slightly before catching himself; after working together with her so long in this room, he had, against his will, become almost  _fond_  of her casual arrogance. He was unsure if it was because she was so much less blunt about it now than she had been when they were younger or if he had simply become inured to it through extensive exposure, but either way, his acceptance of the same traits he had hated so much as a teen still sometimes unnerved him.  _Azkaban, I'll blame it on Azkaban_. "The third way we could nullify your relationship is if he ever gave his rights as your husband to another."

"Which he did," she breathed. "By standing back and letting Voldemort imprison and torture me, he gave the Dark Lord equal if not greater rights. At least, that's one way to interpret it."

"Exactly. We file a motion to annul and show Madam Bones your memory of those days, and not only is your marriage over, we'll have given the DMLE proof that he's back. It's a win-win for us.

"That said, there is one  _tiny_  complication," he continued.

"Oh, Merlin. What is it?"

"Well, according to the terms of the contract, should you annul, it's as if your marriage never happened. We get your dowry back or compensation for any items Lucius can't produce, but you lose all rights to anything you had as Lady Malfoy. You can't take your clothes, any jewels he bought you, nothing."

Narcissa rolled her eyes. "I've yet to see the problem with this."

" _All_  rights," he repeated slowly, "including those to Draco. You would effectively no longer be his mother."

* * *

**Before anyone gets the bright idea of flaming me, I don't want to read** _**one word** _ **about Jen's blood adoption coming out of nowhere. I foreshadowed this throughout** _**Princess of the Blacks** _ **, starting all the way back in chapter TWO. Some hints were subtle, but there were several that were so blatant I'm surprised no one called me on it.**

**The Black family tree gets fairly complicated, as you can tell, though both the Harry Potter Wiki and HP-Lexicon have good ones to look at for the more recent generations. The only change I've made from theirs is placing the birth of Cygnus IX in 1882 rather than '89; otherwise, figuring out the line of succession becomes** _**much** _ **more complicated. The Black family coat of arms I envision is also from the Lexicon rather than the** _**Order of the Phoenix** _ **movie even though I used the rest of their tapestry (because you have to admit, the family tree being an** _**actual** _ **tree was a pretty cool idea).**

**Silently Watches out.**


	3. Dire Whisper of Destiny

**Everyone who mentioned Lily:**  I am well aware that the blood adoption is beyond unfair to her. When I started  _Princess of the Blacks_ , I already had this twist planned, but at that point James was set to be the in-denial Potter while Lily would be the pushy one. It was only when writing chapter 21 that I discovered she had morphed in my head into a sympathetic character; perhaps now you understand better why I made so many comments in ANs about how I wanted her to act more like a jerk. I don't know how she's going to take the revelation about Jen's adoption other than "not well".

 **bissek:**  Voldemort was already an "informal" enemy of the House because of what he did to Jen and how Sirius stood against him in the last war, but his actions against Cissy officially put him at the top of the Blacks' Shit List, as you can see in this chapter.

 **smeehee:**  No, you aren't misunderstanding anything. Based on the not-so-polite discussion Jen and James had in the tent after the Gryffindor Task and her eye color, Pomfrey thinks James had a completely consensual affair with Bellatrix, found out she was pregnant, and then wanted nothing to do with the bastard child he helped create, even after she went to Azkaban and he was the person who  _should_  have taken Jen in. Pomfrey understandably isn't happy about that.

**With review replies and my notes, this chapter is nearly 10,000 words. This is** _**NOT** _ **the new normal. I'm just glad I wrote the third scene over Christmas break.**

**Disclaimer:**  Was Augusta Longbottom portrayed as a decrepit old lady despite being likely around the same age as Hagrid and  _definitely_  younger than Slughorn? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 3  
** **Dire Whispers of Destiny**

"… _Her husband has abandoned her, thrown her to enemies of the House. Enemies whose hands she barely managed to escape, and at great risk to her life. To return to him now would surely see her pass beyond the Veil."_

" _A grave accusation, one a true daughter of this House would not make lightly. Our family cannot ignore this plea and let such a fate befall her. May this child find shelter and succor in the House of her birth once more."_

The memory ending, Amelia pulled her face from the Pensieve belonging to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and turned to the dark-haired lord seated opposite her desk. "While I do not claim to be an expert in memory evaluation, there are no obvious signs that this has been tampered with. It's proof enough for me to officially recognize House Black as having primacy over House Malfoy in regards to Narcissa Malfoy née Black."

"Thanks, Amelia," Sirius sighed as he slumped in his chair.

"Don't thank me too quickly. You're the one who has to deal with her now." The youngest of the Black Sisters, two years her junior, had never impressed her much when they were at Hogwarts together. Too arrogant, too presumptuous, too used to getting her own way; it was beyond obvious that the girl had been the spoiled baby of the family. Her marriage to that slime Lucius had only further stained her in Amelia's eyes.  _Still, nothing for_ _ **me**_ _to worry about. If he wants to stick his neck out for her, that's his problem._  Picking up her stamp and dipping it lightly in a bowl of red ink, she slammed the wood onto the bottom of both copies of the primacy form, then nudged one closer to him. "You keep one, and I'll file the other inside the Hall of Records."

He took the indicated roll and slipped it inside his robe pocket. "Will do."

Nodding, she grabbed her quill to resume the seemingly never-ending parchmentwork that went along with the position of Head of the entire DMLE before she noticed that the man had yet to leave. "Was there something else I can do for you, Sirius? And so help me, if the words coming out of your mouth are innuendo…"

"They're not, don't worry. I know how you get about that. After work only." He grinned at her disapproving glare for a moment, though the expression quickly changed to a much more serious one. "I was actually wondering if you had heard—"

"About a Dark Lord who officially isn't Voldemort, but who the sole eyewitness claims is despite telling Fudge otherwise?" she drawled, causing his jaws to clack shut. "Yes, I received the note Auror Tonks wrote, as well as the message Susan relayed to me. I am well aware of the situation, and all necessary steps are already being taken."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Come on, Amelia, I'm not some  _Prophet_  reporter digging for a scoop or a random wizard barging into your office. You know me; we fought together in the War, for Merlin's sake."

"If by  _'fought together'_ , you mean my team had to watch out to make sure a certain freshly graduated Hit Wizard didn't dig himself too deep a hole while moonlighting as a vigilante with his civilian friends, yes, you could say we did. That doesn't mean I'm going to tell you anything more than I already have."

"Dig myself too deep," he scoffed. "I seem to remember us helping you out quite a few times, like when Proudfoot found himself fighting both Lestrange brothers at once."

She grimaced. He had a point, as there  _were_ occasions when the extra wands had come in handy, but she was not going to admit to that. Her duty was to ensure the safety of the wizards and witches of Britain, and that job had been difficult enough without the very people she was trying to protect intentionally putting themselves in harm's way. "Be that as it may, the details of our operations are strictly need-to-know. Unless you have a specific complaint, I really do need to get back to work."

"A specific complaint? Okay." He leaned back in his seat. "How about the fact that I was able to go through the Ministry, get to this floor, and enter your office without making an appointment with you first, and all without so much as a single person questioning me? Why didn't I see even a hint of scarlet cloaks in the Atrium? You say you're taking steps, but I can't see a single damn difference, here or in Diagon."

Her left eye twitched behind her monocle; she did  _not_ like being taken to task by someone who had no idea what he was talking about. "Just because you see nothing doesn't mean that there is nothing there, Mr. Black."

"It's Lord Black, actually, if we're going to start throwing titles around, Madam Bones." He bent forwards and sighed heavily. "Amelia, my fourteen-year-old goddaughter nearly  _died_  just two weeks ago because a monster we thought dead and gone managed to claw his way back from beyond the Veil. I  _need to know_."

When he put it like  _that_ … The witch slumped in her chair and nodded. If that had been Susan facing Voldemort and just barely managing to escape, she would have been pounding down doors, too. "All right, fine. I  _do_ , in fact, have a couple of my people stationed in the Atrium; they just aren't in uniform. Fudge gave me a great deal of latitude to do what I need to, but he demanded that we don't unduly distress the public. There's a whole squad in Diagon Alley, again in plainrobes, and others are taking shifts in St. Mungo's. Unfortunately, I doubt they'll do any good."

"What do you mean?"

"You were the one who brought up the War; how often did the Death Eaters attack those locations? Four, five times in almost a decade?" He closed his eyes and nodded in comprehension. "They preferred going after soft targets: homes, Muggle infrastructure, scheduled events. The more people I position as additional security, the fewer I can mobilize should they hit  _anywhere_  else. At the same time, I can't leave those places completely unguarded, or the loss of life would be disastrous should they prove too tempting to ignore."

Sirius grunted, "So you need more personnel."

"And I'm supposed to get them  _where_?" she snarled back. "It's not like I can just wave my wand and conjure another company or two. The last trainee who was strong enough and smart enough to qualify for her Auror badge was Tonks, and that was two years ago. None of the crop last year could hack it, and I don't have much faith in this year's batch, either."

He waved his arms wildly. "I wasn't criticizing you, just saying that to do more, you need more people to work with. That's all."

"Ah, sorry." An aggrieved sigh tore its way through her before she could stop it. "It's not your fault; I just had an argument with our  _dear_  Minister about that exact subject this very morning. He wasn't nearly as reasonable."

"That'd sour anyone's day, I'd expect." He tapped his heels against the floor for a few moments as he thought. "What about recruiting from the Hit Wizards? As the Order proved last time, sometimes you just need more wands. They may not be as powerful as proper Aurors, but surely you could use them as backup if nothing else."

She smiled weakly at that recommendation. "Already underway. When I told the instructors what we needed to do, they put their heads together and came up with an abbreviated, combat-focused supplemental course. They won't be able to investigate any better than they already do, but at least they'll know the spells they need for whatever variety of beastie our 'wannabe' Dark Lord throws at them. Not to mention, Alastor organized an absolutely nasty set of lessons on how to counter various dark magics."

"That's good. Very good, actually," Sirius muttered to himself. "How long will this compressed course take?"

"There's the rub; best estimate is four to six months. All of this past year's trainees who qualified to continue to Hit Wizard are getting it by default, and about half of the experienced forces are joining them. Unfortunately, since we're doing this in a large group rather than one or two greenhorns learning from veterans, the squirts who just finished their first year of training have to wait that long to get started on their second year." Realizing she had started idly twirling the quill still in her hand, she tossed it onto the desk. "I'll probably have them work on wandless casting while waiting; it's more time than they'd have gotten if they were trying to figure it out along with the rest of their training. Give them a six-month schedule instead of the full year, and then toss them into the combat course, too."

"That bunch will need remedial training once this is all over, then," he commented in what sounded like a careful voice. "There's no way to leave some of the instructors for the second year and give the combat course in larger groups?"

"It's hard enough to teach fresh Aurors all the details they need to know when it's one-on-one training; we're already looking at ten to fifteen Hit Wizards per instructor. If I make those groups any larger, I'd run a serious risk of sending out people who are greater dangers to our own side than to the Death Eaters'. I'm worried enough about the shortened second year as it is. The last thing I need is for my best fighters to have to split their attention between attacking the enemy and defending the newbies."

"You need more instructors, but since all the wizards who qualify are also the best Aurors you have, you can't pull them off duty to help." Sirius shook his head. "That is a problem."

_Even if he can't do anything about it, at least there's_ _**someone** _ _who understands the difficulties. Probably comes from being a… Hmm._

She ran an assessing eye over him, which did not go unnoticed. "I know I'm a magnificent specimen of a wizard, but I'm not sure it'd be entirely proper for us to—"

"Shut up." Her decision made, she nodded sharply. "You're right; I can scrounge up everything else I need, but it's instructors that are my biggest requirement right now. How would you like to be one of them?"

"…I'm sorry, what?"

"I know you haven't used your training in over a decade – and that's by no means your fault, I know that – but you went through the full two year course before going into the Hit Wizards. I seem to recall you being a rather wicked duelist, too."

"While I appreciate the flattery, it isn't going to get you what you want this time."

She clasped her hands in front of him. "Sirius, I'm  _begging_  over here. You won't be the only one teaching. I can probably get the older Hit Wizards, the ones on desk duty or who are starting to slow down, and some of the ones who aren't taking the combat supplement to work with you. All I need is people to cover the first six months with the trainees while my normal instructors are busy with the supplement."

"I— I don't know about this," he answered, uncertainty splashed across his face. "I mean, I'm busy in the Wizengamot—"

"As the regent of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Bones,  _so am I_ ," she said, cutting off his excuse. "And unlike you, I don't have a political beast holed up in my house because she needs asylum who can do my reading and research for me. All I'm asking for is a few hours a week. No fighting on the front lines, no staying here past midnight, just making sure a bunch of wet-eared brats aren't sent off to die. That's it."

He hesitated several seconds before he finally said, "I'll think about it. I can't give you any answer other than that right now."

"That's fine. When you decide one way or the other, just send me an owl."

The wizard nodded before standing and nearly running out of her office, and she was hard-pressed not to jump up and dance a jig. Even if he decided not to accept the position, he had given her a wonderful solution for her biggest problem, but she would not give up all hope just yet. As he had said, she knew him, and because of that she knew that Sirius Black was in no way a passive person. Him coming here to demand information from her showed that  _that_  had not changed.

He'd be back.

* * *

A flare of green flames heralded Sirius's exit from the gilded fireplace. He glanced around the opulent room, surprised at how little it had changed since he had last seen it more than a decade earlier. Another verdant flash from behind signaled that his companion had joined him.

"Someone is a fan of bronze."

He nodded at the observation; statuettes of centaurs and dragons and pegasus-riding warriors, among others, littered the tables scattered throughout the room, and in the four corners stood man-height apple trees. He looked over his shoulder to see Narcissa gazing at the décor. "That would be Augusta's doing. Believe it or not, she actually made all of these herself."

"You're right. I don't believe you."

"I can't blame you for that," came a strong voice from the doorway, "but in this case, he is correct." Both Blacks turned to watch Augusta Longbottom enter the room, strands of grey just beginning to show in her blonde hair. She crossed her arms, though her thin, yellow summer robes did little to hide the firm muscles pounding bronze into shape had produced. "Everyone needs a hobby."

He bowed at the waist, his cousin dropping into a curtsy at his side. "Dowager Longbottom, we thank you for accepting us into your lovely home."

"Oddly enough, I don't recall inviting you." The lady of the house huffed. "But if you were able to find this place at all, Albus had to have told you the Secret. Follow me; they are in the dining room."

The guests looked at each other in confusion at the brusque words, and Narcissa whispered, "I don't know. I never had much to do with her."

Sirius grimaced briefly before speeding his steps to approach the striding woman. "If we are an imposition, my lady, you need only tell us, and we will be happy to depart."

Augusta whirled on him, her brown eyes sparking in anger. "Having to host a  _Black_  is  _always_  an imposition. Your House produced the bitch who tortured my son and daughter-in-law until they were worse than dead, and your precious heiress is clearly cast from the same mold."

 _How does she know about Jen's adoption?!_  A memory from the previous April sprang to mind and explained to what she was referring, allowing him to relax ever so slightly. "Dowager Longbottom, if there were anything I or my House could do to reverse what Bellatrix did to Frank and Alice, you would not even have to ask. Anyone who was fortunate enough to have known them loved them." His tone hardened as he continued, "That said, I would appreciate you not presuming that my scion is the same as that mad dog. There is a wide gulf indeed between using the Cruciatus Curse and stunning a fellow competitor during a  _school tournament_."

"And yet she's already mastered cursing people in the back. You must be  _so_  proud," the woman mocked.

Standing firm under her onslaught, Sirius felt his anger rise and his bearing become even more regal. Regent of the third Ancient and Most Noble House or not,  _no one_  talked about Jen like that. Unfortunately, his being a guest meant he could not give her the piece of his mind she so richly deserved. "I see that we are, in fact, quite  _un_ welcome here. No matter, we can see ourselves out. Come, Narcissa."

Footsteps in the hall alerted them of the newcomer, and Dumbledore rounded a corner. "Augusta, there you are. And Sirius, this is a pleasant surprise. I honestly did not expect you to attend tonight, nor you, Lady Malfoy."

"Circumstances can change without forewarning," the elder Black answered cryptically.

"True, such as our invitation being revoked," continued Sirius. "We apologize for our intrusion, Dame Longbottom. Professor, perhaps we shall attend your next gathering, or perhaps not. Good evening."

"There's no need to be hasty; I'm sure this is all just a misunderstanding. Isn't it, Augusta?"

"I don't answer to you, Albus," said woman shot back. "It has been years since I was a student, and we are not in the Wizengamot Hall now."

The elderly wizard nodded genially. "Correct and correct again, my dear, but war has a way of bringing together even the most unlikely of allies. Only the most selfish of people would not put aside their personal issues for the sake of the Greater Good."

Augusta glared at him for a moment before turning away. "If you are going to be stubborn about this, fine, but know that I'm holding you personally responsible for their actions. If they in any way lead to something bad happening to Neville, I  _will_  have recompense." Her piece said, she stomped away from them in the same direction from which the headmaster had arrived.

"That went better than I hoped," Albus said in a chipper voice. "Though I have to say, when I sent you the Secret to this place, I believe I asked you to destroy the letter as soon as you memorized it. Do I need to expect any others of your family to attend tonight or some other time?"

"Andromeda read it as well, though she is unlikely to come unless Narcissa or I am unavailable. Much like last time, she would prefer to simply stay out of the way." He left unsaid that Jen and Dora had also had the Secret given to them in case they needed a safe place to run to.  _Though I apparently need to tell them that this is a place of last resort, Jen especially. I don't know that I could trust her alone with Augusta without a fight breaking out._

It was rather depressing that the girl's adoption had already made her a definite enemy, and it had yet to even be revealed!

"I see. Should I worry about anything you learn here finding its way to Voldemort's ears, Lady Malfoy?" The old goat's tone was light, but despite that, Sirius shuddered at the underlying threat. One did not fight in two wars without taking sensible precautions.

Narcissa, on the other hand, was seemingly unaffected. Perhaps her history of standing against the headmaster of Hogwarts kept her from hearing the hidden message despite her normal ability to pick apart the subtleties of people's speech, but more likely the warning was simply meeting her expectations for how this get-together would go. That, or she knew that if anything happened to her, he or Jen would make sure she was avenged. "You have nothing to fear, Mr. Dumbledore. My husband and I have recently separated due to irreconcilable differences, and I myself hold no allegiance to the Dark Lord. Your secrets are safe from him, at least on my part."

"Good, good. That brings me no little comfort." He waved them to follow as he walked deeper into the house. "Would you prefer I call you by your maiden name, then?"

"I think having two Miss Blacks to keep straight would become rather confusing, especially if I find myself traveling to your school again this year," she answered blithely. A smile appeared on her face when Dumbledore twitched at her barb. "Besides, Lucius and I are not yet divorced, nor will we be until his master has been returned to the grave. Meeting with him to discuss the terms of our permanent parting in this current situation is not the wisest plan."

 _Not to mention she doesn't want to play all her cards just yet_ , Sirius recalled from a conversation they had had a few nights past.  _If Lucius happens to find his way in the path of a fatal curse over the course of this war, she'll be away from him yet still hold her place as the Lady of House Malfoy, with all that entails._

Albus nodded in understanding. "Yes, I do recall from your years as a student that you were never one to take a risk unless there was no other option available to you." She bristled, but before she could retaliate, he opened one leaf of the double doors in front of them. "After you."

Squaring his shoulders, Sirius stepped inside and surveyed the assembled Order of the Phoenix. It had taken him three weeks to decide to rejoin the group, far less time than he had needed to agree to Amelia's offer to be an instructor, and even now he was unsure if this was the best option. With Voldemort now specifically targeting Jen, however, he needed to know what the dark wizard was up to if he was to have any chance of circumventing a more direct attempt on her life.

Even if that meant putting his animosity with Dumbledore for repeatedly trying to take her away from the family to the side for now.

 _Not that I did or will forgive or forget it. Keep an ear out for Voldemort and an eye on Dumbledore; it's catching two birds with one hex._  After pulling out a chair at the table for Narcissa, he took his own seat and immediately found himself the recipient of Lily's undivided attention.  _Maybe this wasn't my best idea, after all._

"My friends, thank you for taking the time to come tonight," the old wizard said, the chattering of the gathered falling into silence. "As you can see, we have gained two additional members tonight. Many of you know Sirius Black from the first incarnation of this organization, and I doubt Narcissa Malfoy needs an introduction. Does anyone have anything to bring up before we discuss our scheduled business?"

Alastor Moody, the famed Mad-Eye, grunted from the other side of the table. "Can they be trusted?"

_Clever move, Dumbledore. You want to know why we're here, why Narcissa's here especially, but you know we likely wouldn't give you a straight answer. Instead, we have to justify ourselves to everyone else, and you'll just figure out what you can from our answers._

"I hope you did not just ask a Slytherin if she can be trusted," Narcissa laughed. "After all, our entire philosophy is built on the premise that no one is completely trustworthy. If, however, you wish to know if you should  _distrust_  us, I can say that we are no more likely to betray you than anyone else in this room."

"And how do we know that you're telling the truth?" an unfamiliar woman sitting close to the Auror demanded.

The smirk the Black witch sent back was positively feral. "You just have to trust me."

Sirius rolled his eyes at the minor uproar that remark caused. His cousin loved giving people the runaround, but this was very much  _not_  the time for her to amuse herself.

Thankfully, she seemed to reach the same conclusion, for she raised one hand and the protesting Order members stilled. "We all know that my words do not matter; you have already made up your minds. All I will say is that I have my reasons for wanting to see the Dark Lord fall, and those reasons are mine and mine alone. Consider yourselves blessed that I am on your side now."

" _'Blessed'_ ," James scoffed. "Just why are you so important?"

"Would you not agree that in the political arena, Lucius is by far the most dangerous of the Death Eaters?" she asked sweetly. "You are looking at the woman who spent nearly two decades helping him draft his laws and arguments, who knows their every working and their every loophole. You have gained, and he has lost. Unless, of course, you wish to push my offer of aid aside?"

The vigilantes looked askance to each other, clearly unfamiliar with following the paths the mind of a former Snake took. Assistance finally came to Narcissa from, strangely enough, Lily. "Strategy we can use to block You-Know-Who in that sphere would be greatly appreciated," she said slowly, in the way of someone choosing their words with care. "You certainly have expertise we lack in this regard and would therefore be an extremely useful ally. So long as you do not betray the Order, you are welcome among us."

"I thank you for your greeting, cautious though it may be," Narcissa answered with a nod, her crafty grin growing even wider. "If nothing else, I doubt I shall grow bored here."

Sirius winced.  _That can't be a good sign_.

A small frown could just be seen through Dumbledore's long beard before he wiped it away. "Now that we are assured we are all trustworthy, we should begin with— Yes, Molly?"

A redheaded woman bearing a marked similarity to Fabian and Gideon Prewett – Sirius could only assume from her appearance and name that she was the younger sister they had mentioned a few times before their deaths – smiled sheepishly. "Arthur overheard some people gossiping during work today, but is it true that the Ministry has… well…"

"Yes, Molly, it's true." She looked down, and Dumbledore turned his gaze to the rest of the table. "Cornelius will likely make a statement to the  _Daily Prophet_  tomorrow on this very subject, but I have recently been removed as Britain's representative to the International Confederation of Wizards. He fears that I would use my position to promote my 'delusion' about Voldemort's"—cue group shudder—"return. It is no great loss, to be honest; I doubt they would have offered any assistance anyway. This is an  _'internal matter'_ , after all. Thankfully, I still retain my position as Chief Warlock, so I plan to speak to the Wizengamot next weekend. Perhaps they will listen even though Cornelius does not."

Sirius frowned and shook his head. "I'd recommend you not do that." The other Order members looked to him, so he explained, "The Dark Houses have a plan in place to push forward a motion of no confidence should you ever talk about that subject in the chambers. Even should all the Light Houses side with you, the Neutral Houses will be swayed by the fact that you have no evidence to show them that you aren't senile or lying. If you want to keep your authority there, don't do anything unless and until you can back yourself up."

"And how would you know about their plans?" shouted Dedalus Diggle, a short wizard wearing a violently purple top hat.

"The House of Black is traditionally a Dark House. Even though I personally don't subscribe to the same philosophy, I'm still in a wonderful position to eavesdrop." He mentally rolled his eyes; it never ceased to amaze him how easily the House could overshadow the man. Even those he knew from the War, like Diggle, did not seem to remember that he had fought  _with_  them.

_On second thought, I know exactly why they can't see me for me: twelve years in Azkaban during which they told themselves that I was no different from my family. The Wizengamot declared me innocent, but they either can't or won't look past the story they told themselves. I'm starting to understand why my parents and Arcturus always told us to ignore the opinions of the masses; if nothing you do will change their view of you, why waste your time trying?_

"Thank you for that warning," Dumbledore said, interrupting his reflection. "I was unaware of such a plot, and should it have succeeded, we would have suffered a grave loss. Can you continue to listen to them for us?"

He nodded. In truth, he would have anyway – knowing the enemy's plans was the first step in countering them – so it was little trouble to relay the relevant portions to this group.

"Anything else?" No one spoke up, so the old man continued, "Severus, is there any news from within Voldemort's camp?"

The greasy haired potioneer stepped forwards from his place against the wall, and despite his ingrained instincts, Sirius forced himself not to make any disparaging comments. How Jen could respect such a twisted example of wizardry, he hadn't a clue. "Last month, I told you that a prisoner escaping his grasp gave him no small amount of grief. I recently discovered that he has ordered Lucius to cease his attempts to locate her and to now focus his efforts on political stratagems to degrade your standing in the Wizengamot. The prisoner herself should be safe so long as she does not needlessly put herself in danger."

"Who was this prisoner, anyway?" James asked, barely withholding a sneer as he spoke to his former romantic rival.

Snape tilted his head in Narcissa's direction. "Interestingly, the prisoner in question was the Lady Malfoy. As I hear it, she refused to join the Death Eaters when the Dark Lord demanded she do so." All eyes turned to said woman, and she pulled up the left sleeve of her gown to showcase her unblemished forearm.

"I am glad to hear that we no longer need to be concerned about her wellbeing. What of the prophecy? Does he still seek it?" requested Dumbledore.

"He does."

"I'm sorry, did you say  _'prophecy'_?" The news that a prophecy could be in play worried the canine Animagus. Though Seers used a variety of methods to glean hints about the future, the results of those readings could be anything from what someone would have for breakfast the next morning to a natural disaster taking place a century from now. A legitimate, honest to Merlin, fall-into-a-trance prophecy, though…

Those were never about the small stuff.

"Indeed," the leader of the group answered. "It is inside the Department of Mysteries and pertains to Voldemort and young Danny. We must ensure that he never gets a chance to listen to it."

Lily shook her head. "I still don't know why we can't just have Danny go down with you and take it out of there if it's so important to keep it out of You-Know-Who's hands."

"I do not know if Danny touching the prophecy would cause it to reveal its contents, and I would rather he not be burdened with the knowledge contained within while he still has an opportunity to enjoy his childhood. Besides, the Unspeakables do not allow anyone to remove their records from the Hall of Prophecies, so the point would be moot even if that were not the case."

His explanation did not seem to mollify Lily any, but she nonetheless crossed her arms and leaned back into her chair. Seeing that she would raise no more complaints on that subject tonight, Dumbledore turned to Mad-Eye. "Is the guard schedule working out as you hoped?"

"Aye, it'll do, though if Sirius is up to it, I'll add him to the roster and send out new schedules for everyone."

"Are women not allowed to guard this precious prophecy, or do you just not want me around?" Narcissa asked innocently.

"You're the one who told us not to trust a Slytherin. I'm just taking your advice."

"Thank you, Alastor," Dumbledore cut in before Narcissa could reply to that. "Remus, how have talks with the werewolves gone?"

Remus looked up from his teacup, and Sirius winced at how worn-out his old friend seemed. "Not as well as we hoped, but not as bad as we feared, either. Greyback has been stirring them up, but after I pointed out that legislation against us became so much worse after the first war ended precisely because the Packs sided with You-Know-Who, many have begun to express doubts. It should buy us time if nothing else."

"Very well. Rubeus recently sent me a letter saying that he is now in Eastern Europe; it should not be long before he reaches the giant colonies. Hestia, what about the vampire clans? Have you managed to locate them?"

"I found where they  _were_ ," the witch who had questioned Narcissa qualified, "but all their roosts were deserted when I got there. From the few letters left behind, I think the clans might have gone to the Continent."

Dumbledore stroked his beard thoughtfully. "I can't say that isn't a good thing; there is little we could have offered them that would have been more tempting than what Voldemort would promise. If they leave the fight voluntarily, that is one fewer ally he has at his side.

"Part of the chat I had with Cornelius concerned the Dementors, and needless to say, he will not remove them from their capacities as guards of Azkaban. Kingsley, can you keep an ear out for any news concerning unauthorized movements?"

A large African wizard seated a few places down from Sirius nodded.

"Very good. Thankfully for us, our enemy currently seems concerned with moving his plans forward quietly, so we have time before he sends the Death Eaters out on raids. Alastor is still offering training on basic dueling, so if you need refreshment on that subject, see him soon. Unless there are any other topics we need to address…" No one said anything to that. "…then I call this meeting to a close. Our next meeting will be scheduled as soon as new information becomes available. I wish everyone a pleasant night."

The scraping of chairs against the floor and muttering rehashing of what had just been discussed filled the air, and Sirius gently nudged Narcissa. They rose from the table, intent on leaving before anyone else could question her allegiances further.

"Sirius!"

 _And also to avoid her_ , he added as he turned to the redhead rounding the table. "We really need to head out—"

"Oh, that's fine. I'll show you back to the Floo, and we can talk on the way."

He plastered a fake smile on his face; talking to Lily was not something he wanted to do right now. Unfortunately, he could not think of a polite way to blow her off, so he merely nodded stiffly and followed the woman.

Once outside the dining room, Lily shut the door and turned to Narcissa. "I don't mean to pry, but many of us have been worried ever since we heard that You-Know-Who was holding someone prisoner. Are you okay?"

"I am doing well enough under the circumstances," the piebald witch answered drolly. "As a Pureblood and the wife of his chief lieutenant, the Dark Lord was careful not to harm me overmuch. I thank you for your concern, however."

They walked almost ten whole feet before the subject Sirius knew Lily wanted to discuss finally came up. "Did she come with you?"

"I can only assume you're talking about Jen?" At the woman's eager nod, he glared at her disapprovingly. "No, she didn't. Voldemort is the problem of  _our_ generation, not hers. It is not the responsibility of a fourteen-year-old, undertrained witch to fight a Dark Lord, especially not when she wants nothing to do with this war in the first place. Besides, I don't recall seeing Danny in there, either."

Lily sighed. "Sirius, I didn't mean that this is her responsibility; I'm honestly of the same mind as you about both of them. What I was going to say was that Danny, Neville, and the Weasleys' children often come here with us and entertain themselves elsewhere while we have our meetings, and if…  _Jen_  decides that she wants to do the same, she is more than welcome."

"I believe Augusta thinks differently about that. In fact, she just about threw  _us_  out of the house when we first arrived. Regardless of whether or not I want her exposed to that kind of venom,"— _mostly because I'm afraid of how far she'd escalate things_ —"let's not kid ourselves. If the letters you got from Hogwarts last year were anything like what we heard, you know that Danny and Jen's relationship is at  _best_  antagonistic. There's no telling what would happen without someone there to referee them."

A grimace graced her face. "Well, at least they couldn't curse each other—"

"That's not  _exactly_  true," Narcissa interrupted with a faint smirk. "Your son might not be able to use magic over the summer, but Jen wields a legacy wand. That means no Trace."

"Oh…"

The pair of Blacks came to a halt in the middle of the hallway, Lily stopping a moment later. "I do believe we know how to get from the Floo from here. Thank you again for your welcome."

Lily seemed to hear the dismissal in Narcissa's words, and with a glance at Sirius, she slumped in disappointment. "If you're sure. Could you tell her hello for me?" At their nods, she turned around and walked off at a much less enthusiastic pace than she had previously displayed.

"It's shameful how obvious she makes her desperation," Narcissa observed when the redhead was out of sight.

"What do you mean?"

"Telling us about the children's gathering during the meetings, passing on her greetings, even stopping the argument about whether or not I am trustworthy." She harrumphed. "That woman might as well wear a sign reading,  _'Please help me get back into the good graces of the daughter I abandoned like rubbish when she was just a toddler and who now despises my very existence._ '"

He raised a brow. "I get the first two things you mentioned, but how does saying you can be trusted involve Jen?"

"Because while she may be an uncouth Muggleborn, she's not an idiot. She knows that we are the only route she has to talk to Jen, and if she pushes us away, she'll never build any ties with her. Instead of trying to take what she wants now like the Gryffindor she is, she's playing the long game. I'm almost impressed."

* * *

"A prophecy, huh?" Jen whispered to herself as she floated in the London sky. She always did her best thinking while hanging amidst nothingness, a small mental effort tweaking gravity and anchoring her to an arbitrary point in the air. Since the sight of a person flying was odd at Hogwarts and even stranger here in the heart of the city, she generally limited herself to the nighttime hours. After tonight, she certainly needed some time to herself.

Cissy had attended a meeting of the Order of the Phoenix alongside Sirius just that evening, and the information she brought back was quite unexpected.  _The idea that that idiot Danny Potter is tied to Voldemort through the mysterious workings of fate is just… so hard to believe. I mean, he survived the Killing Curse when he was one because of our grandfather's sacrifice, but that had nothing to do with_ _ **him**_ _. He certainly didn't seem like he was some kind of destined savior the times I fought him this year. At most, he's a dark witch's lunch._

 _So, what could the connection between those two be? Dammit, Cissy, now you've gotten me curious._  She sighed; it was not as if she could just walk into the Ministry and look for herself. There would surely be guards and traps and…

Her thoughts slowed as memories bubbled up inside her. These memories were not her own; they belonged instead to a low-level Ministry employee named Percy Weasley. Weasley had attended the Yule Ball in the place of his boss, Bartemius Crouch, though he had not known that the part of Crouch was actually being played by the man's supposedly dead Death Eater son. She had had the misfortune, or perhaps fortune, of sitting next to him during dinner before the dancing started and had stolen the knowledge in his head, mostly out of boredom. Still, that impetuous decision was now revealing itself to be a boon.

Weasley, though an absolutely insipid human being, was a veritable encyclopedia of information on the Ministry. His goal was to become the Minister of Magic, and to that end he had learned everything he could get his hands on about the various departments. He had also constantly worked late, which meant he was familiar with the nightly routine – or lack of it, to be more precise. Though the Ministry's working hours ended at five in the afternoon, they did not shut down the Floo precisely for workaholics like Weasley who might stay up until nearly dawn or junior Aurors or Hit Wizards who were left with their seniors' paperwork. At – she pulled out her silver pocket watch – not quite two o'clock in the morning, the building would be almost entirely empty.

She could take a look at this supposed prophecy for herself.

Ten minutes and a great deal of muttered cursing later, Jen dipped her hand into the stone pot on the mantel before tossing glittering white Floo powder into the fireplace. She stepped into the billowing green flames and softly called, "Ministry of Magic." Her sonar vanished as she walked through the corridor between fires, and a minor effort wrapped the approaching rays of light around herself to render herself invisible. As an added bonus, the utter lack of light, while blinding her once again, also rid her of the dizzying view that was the swirling grates.

A surge of fire erupted from one of the fourteen fireplaces at her destination, and she waited a moment for her sonar to grow as it adapted to the Ministry's wards. With Weasley's memories to guide her as well as sate her curiosity about what the building looked like, she made her way through the silent Atrium in the general direction of the lifts, correcting her route slightly when a golden arch separating the reception area from the start of the Ministry proper entered her range. Of the two dozen brass grills, her pilfered knowledge told her, most would carry her upwards to the majority of the building's floors. The remaining five at the very back instead went down, towards the single landing that allowed entry to floors nine and ten. It was one of these that she chose.

Soon, the doors of the lift opened at her destination.  _"Level nine, Department of Mysteries,"_  came a calm woman's voice, and she cocked her head in surprise at the greeting. Was the Ministry just  _asking_  people to peek into its most important locations? Leaving the lift, she walked past the unfamiliar magical core that was resting against one wall, snores issuing from the draped stranger that she assumed was the 'guard' Cissy mentioned hearing about. She ignored the stairway leading even farther down that she now knew went to the criminal courtroom at the tenth level and instead made her way down the hall to a single door set flush in the wall.

Opening that door led to a very strange room. Ten other entrances were positioned at regular intervals around the circular wall, with thin candles between each one. She allowed the door she had just gone through to close as she wondered which one would hold the prophecy she was searching for. The instant the door slid into its frame, however, a web of magic sprang up from the floor.

"Shite!" A reflexive flick of her left wrist manifested a gravity well near the ceiling, and she let it yank her off the floor and out of the net's grasp. After a moment when nothing came out and attacked her, she forced herself to relax and noticed that the stone below her was rapidly spinning. Carding mental fingers through the spell she had escaped caused her to frown.  _It's not overtly dangerous, nor even mildly debilitating. In fact, all I can feel from it is a sense of… stability, almost. What is it?_

The floor finally slowed and stopped, and when its rotation ceased, so did the charm.  _So they're linked. A spinning floor and… Ah, I understand now. By having the floor move, it disorients any would-be intruders, but at the same time, the Unspeakables would have a hard time getting to their work if they were dizzy and falling all over themselves all the time. In addition to holding them to the ground, that spell probably also prevents vertigo._  Landing lightly back on the ground and putting the door she had come through at her back, she pondered where to go before shrugging and pushing open the first door to her left.

As far as she could feel, which totaled to about four meters in any direction, the room she had entered was completely empty. She debated with herself for a minute before dismissing her invisibility; her eyes did not provide as detailed of information as her sonar did, but sight extended farther. Blinking away the spots the sudden influx of light produced, she noted a small fleet of broomsticks on the other side of the room before she looked up.

_That's… incredible._

Above her floated what could only be hundreds of orbs, all of them circling a bright glow in the middle of the free space. Taking to the air, she swam among them as she tried her best to identify just what was studied here. A dull yellow sphere with a grey disc around it looked extremely familiar, and following a hunch, she moved closer to the center and spotted a blue orb half as wide as she was tall sporting patches of green and white.

 _That has to be Earth, and Saturn, and Jupiter with its Great Red Spot there._  Admiring the exquisitely detailed model of the solar system for a moment, she canceled her flight while charming herself to be truly weightless, then kicked off from the replica Moon to drift downwards to the ground. A flip followed by dismissing her spell let her land lightly onto the floor.  _That was fun. I'll need to break in here again sometime_.

She looked around and cocked her head when she realized there were not one but three doors in this room: the one she had entered from was opposite the wall covered in brooms, yet the other walls also held doors. The one to the left of her entrance particularly intrigued her.  _The floor isn't sloped, so that door should lead to the hallway the guard is sleeping in. In fact…_  She moved over to the odd portal and paced to the 'front' wall and back.  _…unless I'm very much mistake, that doorway is in nearly the exact same place as the stairwell connecting the ninth and tenth floors. How is that possible?_

Curiosity burning within her, she gently pushed that door inwards and peeked through. What she saw nearly made her drool.

Books. Lots and lots and  _lots_  of books.

Entering the library fully, Jen clicked her tongue loudly and listened for the faint echo it produced.  _Similar acoustics to Hogwarts's library, so it's probably about the same size._  She walked over to the nearest bookcase and glanced at some of the titles:  _Effects of Time Dilation on Potion Brewing, volumes 1 through 4. Fae Species. Harmony and Disharmony in Combined Sumerian and Linear Rune Scripts. Arithmantic Breakdown of the Imperius Curse_.

She blinked and looked again at that slim text. The Imperius Curse was one she had used for years, despite not knowing its proper English name, and while it was a little tricky to get right, she would not have expected its formula to be anywhere near long enough to have an entire book dedicated to it.

_This is practically the Restricted Section blown up to the same size as the rest of the library. I could spend days getting lost in here. Literally; there doesn't seem to be any sort of filing system whatsoever. None of those books have anything in common with any of the others, and yet they share a shelf._

Shaking her head and causing her dark tresses to swish, she forced herself away from the leather-bound temptations and towards the door opposite the one leading to the planetary model. It was interesting that there was also a door at the front just as there had been in the previous room. Opening the new door, she stopped midway through the doorway and gaped.

Directly above her was Pluto.

 _That… How?_  She turned around and glared at the smooth black panel she  _thought_  she had used before. Reaching out one hand, she pulled on it, but her magic could not overpower whatever force was now keeping it closed. The same proved true for the other side of the door in the space room.

Slowly stepping back and allowing the door to swing shut, she pinched the bridge of her nose. Perhaps a lack of sleep was why she had gotten so incredibly turned around. She shrugged and pushed the door open again, only to find that the replica solar system had been replaced with rows and rows of bubbling cauldrons.

 _Either I'm losing my mind, or these rooms aren't physically connected to each other. By the Baron, I hope it's the latter._  Deciding to test her theory, she closed the door and opened it again multiple times. A room full of clocks and a giant bell jar. A room with an enormous tank of green water in the center. A room that had its walls covered by blackboards. The potions room again. A dark room filled with shelves.

The ambiance of this room piqued her interest, and she stepped through the doorway. The moment she crossed the threshold, she felt a tiny bit of the magic flowing out her hands and down her hair stream forwards and merge with a thread of energy that came at her from deeper inside the room. Wary of this new development, she approached the lightly dust-covered spheres she could feel and examined them. Each shelf contained dozens of the pale blue orbs, and under them were labels bearing abbreviations and question marks. What was more, the balls were all wrapped in the same prickly spell, one that flared when she brought her hand near.

 _So they're just like strippers; you can look, but you can't touch. If this is the Hall of Prophecies, listening to the one about Potter and Voldemort is going to be difficult._ Not to mention that she was anxious about what the cord tied to her magic likely meant. She would much rather not share the dubious honor of being in a similar boat to the one her now half-brother was in.  _Still, now's the time to look for it._

From her pocket she drew an elaborately folded sheet of paper. When she was working as an actual prostitute in Candyland rather than tending the bar, her roommate Allison had been a fan of origami and had tried to teach her how to do it; she had many talents, but it turned out that making animals out of paper was most definitely  _not_  one of them. Of all the things Allison had coached her on, the lone creature she could still make was a rather pathetic-looking crane, and it was this that she brought to life with a touch of her magic. Stretching its wings, the paper bird leapt off her hand and flew deeper into the room.

Jen jogged after the construct and was again thankful that she had had paper among her belongings at all. The magical world did not use the stuff – it saw no need to switch to a new medium when parchment lasted longer, could more easily be cleaned and reused, and was less likely to be damaged by errant spells – but while her coworkers knew she could use magic, they were unaware of a wider wizarding society, instead thinking that it was a skill unique to her. She therefore kept a small amount of paper in her desk for correspondence with them. Before folding the crane, she had used her blood to sketch  _ehwaz_  – the Futhark rune for movement and animation – in the middle of the page, and imbuing the character with a locator spell caused it to home in on the prophecy she was after.

Her disquiet increased as the tiny golem led her deeper into the room and in the same direction as the thin connection to her own prophecy. After a couple of minutes, the bird flew between two cases and alighted on one sphere. Unlike the others nearby, the magic of this orb was sedate, swirling peacefully around it before drifting off to meet her. The yellowed label made the witch groan aloud.

_S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D.  
_ _12 May, 1980  
_ _Dark Lord,  
_ _? (Danny Potter),  
_ _and ?_

_And I make three_. She lifted the ball from its recessed stand, sending the origami crane aloft again, and tentatively poked it with her magic. There was a reaction, much to her satisfaction, and white smoke poured out through the otherwise solid glass before floating upwards and forming the image of a woman with large goggles and numerous shawls wrapped around her shoulders. The figure hesitated a moment before speaking in a gravelly voice.

_"Trumpets blast and the Dark Lord trembles at the approach of the One meant to Vanquish him… Born to those who have thrice Defied him, born as the Seventh Month dies… a child, marked by the Dark Lord himself, will be raised in Light… another, knowing only Hate and Cruelty, will Fall into darkness… the Contest between them will Shape our world… should the Dark Lord not fall at the One's hand, his Reign will be forevermore… the One with the Power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the Seventh Month dies…"_

Jen's fist clenched and relaxed repeatedly around the prophecy orb as the mist retreated, her rage resisting her attempts to restrain it. From deep within her, a monster roared its wrath for all to hear, and the blue spheres within her sonar's range exploded into shards of glass and clouds of smoke, a cacophony of voices shrieking muddled nonsense for long seconds before petering out.

There was silence.

"No." Her voice was quiet, but it gained strength as she felt her resolve harden. "So what if some bitch who sounds like she smokes five packs a day says either Potter or I am destined to bring down Voldemort? That means nothing.  _I. Don't. Believe. In. Fate_."

She threw the prophecy to the ground; it shattered, and a gust of wind blew away the figure before it could echo its earlier pronouncement. "This whole thing was a waste of time. I don't know why I even bothered coming here."

Burning the crane to ash, she walked down the hall to the door connecting to the circular entrance hall. Once out of the room, she floated a foot above the floor as it spun, opening each door one by one until she found the exit. She strode to the golden grilles and impatiently punched the button that would call a lift. Her only goal now was to get home and go to bed.

She just wanted this day to be over already.

* * *

**Let the interpretation of this new prophecy begin…**

**I know we're all used to thinking about the DMLE as being useless against Voldemort, and I can't deny that they don't have a good showing in canon, but something that struck me while I was writing this chapter is just** _**how little** _ **time they had to get ready. Fudge finally admitted that the Dark Lord had returned in June of 1996, and Voldemort launched his assault on the Ministry in August of 1997. A year really isn't that long, and as Amelia mentioned above, it isn't like she can just pop out more Aurors whenever they're needed.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	4. Comforting an Agonized Soul

**Yuri-Hime-Chan:**  Yeah, Jen wasn't exactly as  _discreet_ as she could and should have been when she heard the prophecy, but in her defense, destroying all the orbs around her wasn't intentional. Much as happened in  _Princess_  chapter 27, her anger just likes to break stuff.

**TetrisLame:**  You were the  _only_  one who caught the difference between "Light" and "darkness" in the prophecy. While it  _can_  mean Dark philosophy or dark magic, it most refers to Jen's blindness.

**Kingdom Hearts KeyBlade:**  To be honest, I don't have any definite plans for how Dumbledore will die, or even if he will die "on screen" at all. The big thing keeping him safe right now is that Jen didn't pay close attention to the initials under the prophecy orb, nor does she know his full name. If she ever figures that part out… Yeah, it won't be pretty.

**I must say, I very much enjoyed reading all the prophecy interpretations you guys left me. Most of you were very close to what I had intended for it to mean, and a few even pointed out valid points that** _**I** _ **hadn't considered.**

**Disclaimer:**  When Harry turned 17, did he just send the Dursleys off with essentially a friendly "Take care of yourselves!", despite the fact that they had verbally, emotionally, and (arguably) physically abused him for apparently his entire life? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 4  
** **Comforting an Agonized Soul**

Jen's connection to the Blacks' London townhouse was, as far as she could determine, unique. The instant she had entered the building for the first time – even before she adopted Bellatrix as her mother, when her closest ties to the family were as Sirius's goddaughter and Dorea Potter née Black's great-granddaughter – the magic saturating the walls had washed over and through her, almost as if Grimmauld Place was welcoming her home. Her sonar had threaded through the wards overhead, expanding to a degree she had never before considered possible. As long as she was within the wardline, she could feel everyone and everything; she knew exactly what was going on in any room of the house without leaving her chair. Total awareness.

So, when an unexpected guest entered via the Floo, she was informed the very instant it happened.

She could not keep the grin off her face as she walked down the stairs from the library to the ground floor. Of the literally hundreds of magical cores she had encountered in her life, she had only found  _one_  that leapt and danced as this one did, spinning around like a lovesick maiden swirling her favorite dress about herself to music only she could hear.

She turned the corner into the drawing room and truly looked at Luna Lovegood for the first time.

The younger girl was widely considered at Hogwarts to be exceedingly strange, if not a bit mad. Jen, however, along with the friends she had gathered over the previous year, knew that was not the case. Luna could be absentminded at times, yes, and she was more than a little socially inept, her isolation the result of her 'flights of fancy' pertaining to creatures that no one else could see. A stroke of luck on Jen's part had actually revealed the truth about that the previous September: the Lovegood line was blessed – or possibly cursed – with an incredible empathic sense that bypassed even her unnaturally strong mental shields. Rather than actually  _feel_  the emotions of everyone around them, however, the members of that family instead translated what their sixth sense detected into visions of fantastical beasts. Even after an entire year, Jen did not know everything about her friend's talent, but what she  _did_  know was that it was the most intriguing familial ability she had ever heard of.

Quietly taking in the dirty blonde hair that fell down past the girl's shoulders and the vibrantly orange and pink sundress for a moment, Jen cleared her throat. "Find something interesting there?"

"Perhaps," came a dreamy voice. Luna reached up to tap one of the portraits on the family tree that she was staring at. "I can't tell if this is a spot on the tapestry or if he just had a giant wart on his nose."

Her head tilted in curiosity of its own accord, and Jen walked up to stand behind her friend. The blonde was pointing to her great-great-great-uncle Arcturus, not to be confused with the wizard of the same name who was Sirius's grandfather. As for the question… "Honestly? I don't really know."

A sigh. "Too bad. Now I want to know. Oh, well." Luna spun around and, compensating for the slight difference in their heights, pushed herself onto the balls of her feet so she could stare at Jen's face. "Your eyes are very pretty."

"Thank you," the darker of the pair replied with a smile while her gaze flicked over her companion. The blonde would never be a classic beauty; her silver eyes were too large for her face, and while she had a delicate little button nose, it was higher compared to her upper lip than was common. Still, her  _'witch next door'_  looks, as Jen had heard their mutual friend Kenneth Towler refer to them, were undeniably cute. "You're not looking too bad, yourself."

Luna blushed at the compliment. Jen stepped away so that they were no longer nearly touching, and yet more hot blood suffused the girl's cheeks. "Jen… What in Merlin's name are you wearing?"

She shrugged nonchalantly. "Just something I had laying around." The sweltering heat wave hitting the country was putting a strain on even the cooling charms and icy dark magic suffusing the house's walls, so rather than subject herself to heatstroke in one of Bellatrix's floor-length dresses, she had conjured up a thin vest and a miniskirt, an outfit similar to what she had worn while working behind the bar at Candyland. After ten months of robes, elaborate gowns, and canvas trousers, her Muggle garb was both odd and comforting at the same time.

Comforting was good. She had not had the best week.

Chuckling at Luna's mild discomfort, she snagged the girl's hand and dragged her to a couch. Jen slid into the seat opposite and carefully curled her legs beneath her; she had gotten out of the habit of wearing knickers when she was eight, and between Voodoo rituals that required at least partial nudity and prostitution that required full nudity, body modesty eventually became something of a foreign concept to her. At this moment, though, she was sure that giving a free show would send Luna into a dead faint from embarrassment. "So, not that I would mind you coming over purely because you wanted to, but you seem to have something you  _really_  want to tell me."

"How did you know?"

"Well, for one, you're twitching like you're about to wet yourself."

Luna huffed and crossed her arms. "Now I'm not sure I want to tell you."

"Okay." Leaning back against the arm of the sofa, Jen simply smiled softly and waited. Which of them was less patient?

Today, it was the blonde who broke first. "All right, so you remember how Professor Flitwick was going to come to my house and let me sit the end of year exams for fourth year? Well, he did, and guess what? I passed!"

The Black heiress's face split into a broad grin. "All of them?"

"All of them!" Laughing brightly, Luna leapt into her arms and gave her a hug worthy of a starving python. "All Es except for an A in Herbology and an O in Arithmancy. I'm going to be in your year now!"

"That's great." Faux sorrow tinged her voice as she continued, "Wait, no it's not. I'm the only fifth-year girl in Ravenclaw without a roommate. Now I'll have to  _share_."

"I promise I'll leave you a pathway from your bed to the door, and if you're nice, I might even give you half a shelf in the bookcase. In return, though, can you make sure you keep that creepy knife away from me?" Luna asked in a far more serious tone.

_I hadn't thought about that. She only saw my Death Focus once, but her reaction then was rather extreme_. Her dagger, made from a human femur that she had cut out of its still-living donor, was saturated in black magic; there was no telling what Luna's familial gift manifested as when looking at it, and Jen was in no hurry to find out. Whatever it was, it had seriously disturbed the empath. "Sure."

The girl frowned before peering closely at her. "Are you okay? I think your Melanchist is larger than it was when we left for the summer."

Her grin petered out at Luna's question. Ever since she had broken into the Department of Mysteries a week previously, the blasted prophecy she had the serious misfortune of being named in had been repeating itself nigh endlessly inside her skull. The more she tried not to think about it, the less she could help herself from doing exactly that. In an effort to disprove to herself the validity of those raspy words once and for all, she had done a little digging into divination and prophecies.

The results had not been comforting.

Many of the materials taught in Divination were debatable, but prophecies were another matter entirely. Like scrying, a discipline she herself had long trained in, the field of prophecy had been researched and studied for years before finally being declared truth. Unfortunately, that meant that the pronouncement she had heard earlier was an actual warning of future events.

_Which isn't what I wanted to find out at all._  A dreadful chill ran down her spine, and she impulsively pulled Luna closer to her, causing the younger witch to squeak in surprise at the sudden embrace.  _If prophecies are true, then Potter and I are the only ones who have the ability to keep Voldemort from crowning himself as the first British witch-king since Mordred of Camelot. Because that's_ _ **exactly**_ _what I wanted for my life._

_Damn it all, I'm a black witch, not some fairy tale heroine! Saving the world is_ _**not** _ _in my job description!_

Despite the uncomfortable portrait the prophecy painted, Jen had already realized that it answered some questions she had long wondered about. Why an old woman, one who was more than a little callous and stained beyond measure by the murders she had gleefully committed, was the only person to follow the cries of a raped little girl. Why, when she underwent a dangerous ritual to sacrifice her magical core for a connection to the planet, she was the first one in documented history to survive. Why dark magic came so easily to her, requiring only that she imbue a spell with hate and rage to twist it into something far more dangerous than it had been before.

She was the darkness to her half-brother's light, she his foil and he hers. She could not stand in opposition to him if she died early, and it was only through Elsie that she had attained her prophesied  _'Power'_. An evil grin grew in her mind to a width that would turn the Cheshire Cat green with envy, though she worked hard to keep it off her face where it would certainly scare Luna. She almost  _hoped_  he would walk the same route she did; should he ever find a master of his own, she would be fully justified in killing him without a moment's hesitation.

Shaking her head, she decided she had left her friend's question unanswered for long enough. It might not be a bad thing to request some help, either; one of her favorite things about Luna was the unconventional thinking she brought to any situation. "It's just some things that came up recently. I may be being forced down a path I don't want to tread, but I don't know what to do about it."

"Oh, that doesn't sound good." The blonde pulled herself out of Jen's grasp and knelt on the other cushion of the loveseat. "Are we talking about not wanting to follow a rule society says you have to? Is your Head of House telling you to do something for the good of the family even though the burden on you is too heavy?" Luna laughed faintly in an obvious attempt to brighten the mood. "Maybe… I don't know. Are you named in a prophecy or something?"

Her responding laughter rang stilted and false to her ears. "Let's go with the third one, just for convenience's sake."

"Fine, fine. If you don't want to tell me, you can just say so, you know." The younger witch rolled her eyes before nibbling lightly on her bottom lip for a moment. "Besides, true prophecies aren't that hard to deal with."

"Oh?"

Her friend nodded. "That's right. My gran on my daddy's side used to have visions sometimes, and she once told me that people get too worked up over them, either trying to avoid them or trying to make them come true. Fate doesn't have expiration dates; it'll happen when it happens. You can't run away from from the future, no, but just because you know doesn't mean you have to run  _towards_  it, either. Worry about today today, and tomorrow will work itself out in its own time." Luna smiled serenely. "Who knows? You don't want to do whatever it is now, but if you do nothing more about it than keep an eye on how the situation develops, when it's finally time, you might not even mind it."

_I seriously doubt I'll ever want to fight Voldemort head-on, but she has a point. The line about_ 'if the Dark Lord does not fall at the One's hand' _means it's not a guarantee that this One, whichever of us it winds up being, will survive. I_ _ **know**_ _I can't take him on now, but his last war went on for over ten years; who knows what I'll be capable of after that long? Not to mention, if it ever does look like Potter's winning our little 'Contest'… Well, the House of Black has never been accused of playing fair._  "Thanks, Luna. Have you ever thought about going into the advising business when you leave Hogwarts?"

"I haven't, but that's not a bad suggestion. That'll be three galleons, please."

* * *

Peeking into the library, Dora found her baby cousin right where she expected, laying on her belly on a sofa with a book propped in front of her. She squinted slightly to make out the title embossed on the leather spine. _'Arte of the Succubus, volume 2'?_  "Are you seriously reading smut in here?"

"Only skimming, really. I'll savor the steamy parts in the privacy of my bedroom later." Jen glanced up from the thick text, purple eyes that the metamorph was sure she would never get used to sparkling with humor. "Unless that was actually a request?"

She shook her head rapidly. "No thanks. I'm not interested in other girls, kids, or relatives, and you're all three."

"Please, you're only seven years older than I am. That's not enough of a difference to justify calling me a kid," the younger witch said with a roll of her eyes.

"You're not of age yet, though," she chirped back. "Besides, everyone knows that it's not the years that matter, it's the experience."

"Experience? You  _really_  want to go there, sweetie?"

With a huff, Dora walked over and snatched the porn out of her cousin's hands. "Get your head out of the gutter,  _kid_ , before your brain starts to rot. I actually came here to talk to you about something serious."

_That_  caught the girl's attention, and she pushed herself upright. "What is it? Did something come up with your parents?"

"No, nothing like that. It doesn't even have to do with them; it's about you. What's got you moping around lately?"

"Moping? I haven't been moping."

The denial was just a hair too quick, and the currently electric blue–haired woman raised an eyebrow. "Fine, maybe more  _brooding_  than moping, I suppose, but either way, something's put you in a mood, and I want to know what it is."

"Dora, I'm a teenaged girl," Jen reminded her unnecessarily. "I think I'm allowed to be overly dramatic or self-absorbed once in a while."

"Except you can't." She grinned when the girl frowned at that pronouncement and twirled her wand next to her leg in a seemingly idle fashion. "Adopted or not, I don't let my little cousins stew in their own angst. You can either tell me now, or I'll  _make_  you talk."

"You? Make  _me_? Ha!" The dark-haired youth smirked at her. "Do your—"  _Whump_.

"Worst? If you insist."

Jen blinked several times in surprise and just stared at Dora while her fingers roved deftly over the small, yellow throw pillow the metamorph had conjured and banished in a smooth chain, almost as if she was trying to convince herself that it was real. "Did you just—"  _Whump_.

Dora snorted as the blue pillow joined its fellow in the girl's lap after bouncing off her face again. "I can keep doing this all day, you know. Might as well get whatever it is off your chest."

"So that's how—" Jen's hand shot up and caught the red pillow. "—it's going to be, huh? I'd have thought all of you would have learned from Sirius's mistakes last year." The three tiny cushions rose into the air, duplicates appearing from nothingness. Dora winced as she realized this might  _not_  have been the best way to pull the girl out of her slump. "I  _always_  get even."

Panicking, the Auror threw herself behind the opposite couch as fifteen pillows flew in her direction. Another conjuration, and she banished her newest projectile in time to see Jen vault over the back of her own sofa. Hiding behind a barrier did not stop more of their current weapon from popping into existence and racing after their target.

She grinned despite herself as she fired a number of bolsters as quickly as she could swish her wand. A pillow fight wasn't exactly what she had in mind, but she couldn't argue with the results.

Unfortunately, Jen's wandless casting was tilting the battlefield further and further to her advantage. Not only could she create multiple pillows in the time it took the older witch to conjure one, Jen also had the pillows on the ground rising into the air only to shoot at her. She simply could not keep up.

_Well, who said I had to play by the rules?_  Materializing one more pillow and duplicating it so there were more than a dozen, she charmed them to levitate and banish themselves at a regular interval. A tap of her wand on the top of her skull soon had the cold and sticky feeling of disillusionment sliding down her back, and after applying a silencing charm to her feet, she crept away from her barricade and toward her foe's.

Just because her klutziness had nearly caused her to fail Stealth and Tracking did not mean she was incapable of sneaking up on a preoccupied teen.

Pillows flew faster and faster at the couch she had left, causing her to sweat slightly. Had she not already moved, she would have been caught in the middle of that. Still, victory was nearly at hand. She peered around the side of Jen's sofa and slowly pointed her wand at the girl. It was at that moment that Jen raised her right hand to shoulder-height and snapped her fingers; Dora yelped as she was grabbed by unseen hands and pulled into the air.

"Oh, now that's not fair."

Jen turned around and smirked as the Auror quickly became visible once more. "Silly Dora. I spent nearly  _two thirds_  of my life blind. For the Baron's sake, did you really think you could sneak up on me by simply turning yourself  _invisible_?"

The woman groaned as she realized she  _had_ dismissed that possibility. After a month of Jen having her eyes uncovered, she had not considered that the teenager would continue to use whatever trick she had developed to work around her previous disability. Why would she need to when she could now see?

"You really, truly did think that would work, didn't you? Unbelievable." The dark-haired witch shook her head as  _all_  the pillows they had fired rose from the floor. "Well, I guess I'll simply have to  _discipline_  you for that."

Dora gulped and said in a tremulous voice, "Now, Jen, you know you don't want to do that to your favorite cousin."

To her surprise, Jen nodded at that. "You have a point." Dora's relief was torn away when a wave of the girl's hand had the pillows encased in a pink glow. "I want to do  _this_."

The floating heralds of humiliation flew.

She could barely breathe as the pillows just kept hitting her. They did not have much force behind them, but the laughter caused by the tickling charm on all of them prevented her from catching her breath. The levitation charm failed then, dropping the panting woman into the fluffy mass below her. With a giggle, her tormentor jumped over and flopped down at her side.

"You are an evil, evil witch," Dora forced out between her gasps for air.

"You're just now figuring that out?"

The retort the metamorph shot back at that involved a pine cone, a traumatized squirrel, and truly bizarre forms of self-gratification, but to her disappointment, it did not prompt even a hint of a blush from the teen. Huffing, she let her head fall onto the pillows beneath her. "You going to tell me what's wrong now that I beat you?"

Jen snickered at that, though she finally shrugged her shoulders. "End of last year. Aunt Cissy being kidnapped by her own husband. Sirius having to side with Dumbledore, even after everything he did to hurt our family. A war building on the horizon." She sighed. "You know, just life being crazy."

"Yeah, it sucks."

"Tell me about it." The girl reached over and grasped her hand. "Hey, Dora?"

"Hmm?"

"Thanks."

She shrugged back, her pink spikes changing to ringlets of gold as she relaxed. "No problem. I gave big sister advice to my other cousins when they were younger, so I'm used to being right about stuff like this."

The younger witch propped herself up on one elbow. "Other cousins?"

"Dad's the youngest of three, and much as I love his brother and sister, they breed like puffskeins. I've got to have ten or eleven cousins on that side of the family. I don't see them much, though, on account of him being the only magical one of the bunch. Still not sure how that worked out; usually when one sibling's magic, the others are, too," she commented. "Since we can only reveal the existence of magic to Muggleborns'  _immediate_  family, I'd be required to Obliviate them if I lost focus and my hair morphed. Not to mention, I really don't want to have to explain to Scrimgeour why I had to arrest myself."

_That_  got some honest laughter out of the girl.

An idea came to her mind. "You know, I'm scheduled for some time off this weekend, and there's a magical spa in Edinburgh I've wanted to try out that is supposed to give the  _best_  massages. How about we make a girls' day of it? Not only would it relax you, we could get you all primped and prettied before you and Sirius head to the Ministry on Monday."

Jen smiled. "Sounds good."

* * *

_Bring._

_Briiiiiiiing._

_Bri-bri-bri-briiiing._

"Whu?" Petunia groaned as she rolled over. "Whazzah?"

Her husband snorted as he forced himself out of the divot in the bed. "Who the hell would be ringing the doorbell at three in the ruddy morning?! Don't they know that people have to work tomorrow?"

A flash of pity for whatever fool was trying to get their attention crossed her mind for just a moment. Vernon was a little ill-tempered if he did not get enough sleep. Of course, anyone who would get decent, hard-working folk up in the wee hours of the morning without a very good reason deserved the tirade he would surely give them. "Just…" She yawned. "Just be careful. Could be some drunk waiting out there."

He grunted in response and pulled a cricket bat out of the closet. It had been decades since he had actually played cricket, ever since he started putting on a little excess weight, but he still kept it for self-defense purposes. She listened closely as he stormed down the stairs, the old steps creaking, grumbling all the way. Finally, he arrived at the front door, and she heard him shout, "What do you—"

Silence.  _Thud_. Silence.

"Vernon?" she called nervously, grabbing her bathrobe from the chair it was laid across to wrap it around her thin nightgown. Scurrying down the hall, she peeked into the stairwell and nearly shrieked when she spotted her husband slumped against the wall at the bottom of the stairs. "Vernon! Are you all right?!"

Her feet had barely hit the ground floor when she felt herself being picked up and yanked towards the kitchen table. Just before she hit it, however, the pull reversed directions and threw her against the wall next to the stairs. She stayed there, somehow unable to fall.

"He's just unconscious; you don't have to worry. Yet." She looked down and to the left to find a black-haired woman squatting and staring into the empty cupboard under the stairs. "Don't know why I thought it'd look the same after all this time. Stupid of me, I suppose."

"Who are you?!"

The intruder snorted and stood, turning to fix her with a dark purple gaze, eyes sparkling with some unknown emotion. Having a better look, Petunia realized now that rather than a grown woman, she was seeing a teenage girl. A hooligan, most likely. Considering how she was being held against the wall, there was no doubt that she was a  _freak_ , as well.

The girl grinned creepily. "Ah, do you not remember me? I guess that's understandable. After all, it's been, what? Almost ten years?"

"I don't know who you are, girlie, but we  _will_  call the police—"

"Okay, you do that. I'll wait." The freak crossed her arms and stood silently for a few moments. "Oh, that's right. You  _can't_ , not while you're stuck there, can you? A pity, but it means no one will interrupt us.

"As for who I am, that's easy. Let's see if this jogs your memory." A snap of the freak's fingers made a bundle of white cloth appear, and it quickly unrolled and wrapped around her head and over her eyes. She affected a quivering pout and a whiny voice. " _Please_ , Aunt Petunia, I'll do better. I  _promise_!"

Recognition and rage flooded the woman. " _You_!"

"Me." The cloth vanished, and Lily's runt of a daughter bared her teeth in a mockery of a smile. "Good to see you again, Petunia. I was just in the neighborhood, and I thought I'd come by and say hello. Maybe have a bit of  _fun_  while I was here."

"You're not welcome here, you  _freaky brat_! Get out of my house!"

"I love how you think you have any kind of power over me. It's really quite amusing." The freak twirled around whimsically. "Something I  _don't_  love, however, is how you've decorated the place. Don't you fret your bleached blonde head about it, though." A bright smile lit the girl's face. "I'll make it look real  _hot_  before I leave."

"I don't want you to do anything to it!" Petunia panted as she stared into the amused purple orbs looking back at her. "What did you do to your eyes? They're supposed to be green."

The girl snickered. "They  _were_ , yes. As for what I did… The short answer is  _magic_." She flinched at that hated word. "Longer answer: eyes that don't work aren't any good to me, so you could say that I just needed to find some…  _replacements_."

_'Replacements'?_  Petunia's face paled as the meaning of the words sunk in. The girl had ripped out somebody's  _eyes_?!

"You probably didn't know this, but most people aren't willing to give up both their eyes to someone else, even a girl who needs them. It's a real dog-eat-dog world. One good thing about that, though, is that in that kind of world, all you have to do to get on top is to be the meanest dog out there. Nothing like being abandoned in the bad side of London to teach you  _that_ lesson." Another feral smile. "I should probably be thanking you for that, but first, we're missing one last member of our little reunion."

The freak snapped her fingers again, and four huge nails appeared in midair and shot through Petunia's wrists and ankles into the wall behind her. She screamed at the pain, but after a second, her voice stopped working. She couldn't yell. Couldn't speak. Couldn't call for help.

"That's better. By the Baron, you have a shite voice. I'm surprised you didn't break the glass with that. Be back in a sec." Chuckling darkly, the girl raced up the stairs, and a bang echoed a moment later. There was a high-pitched screech that raised Petunia's hopes, but after a few more seconds of silence, light footsteps came back down. Floating behind the freak was her precious Dudley! He was dressed only in his pants, arms and legs bound by rope and a bright red apple crammed into his mouth. "Finally, the whole 'family' back together again."

Petunia opened and closed her mouth rapidly, tears streaming down her cheeks, and the girl cocked her head before waving a hand at her. "You have something to say?"

"Why are you even here? What do you want from us?!"

"I thought it was fairly obvious," her despicable niece remarked. "For four years, you intentionally and systematically abused me. You treated me like a slave; no, not even that. You treated me like a  _thing_ , like I was an  _object_  that couldn't hope, couldn't cry, couldn't understand what you were doing." She cackled at that. "Thankfully, I'm not one who likes to owe debts. I prefer to get rid of them as soon as possible, and I owe  _you_  quite a massive one."

Petunia gasped, and then she screamed again when the girl reached over and traced a ring around each of her eyes. Sharp pain followed the freak's finger, and when she pulled back, the woman nearly fainted at the circles of flesh laying in her palm.

"Can't have you shutting your eyes; you'd miss out on all the fun." Carelessly dropping her severed eyelids onto the floor, the freak pointed two fingers at her eyes, which swung on their own to stare at the girl's fingertips. "That's better. Let's get started."

"No. No no no no no."

"Now you get it. Payback's a  _bitch_."

* * *

Humming softly to herself from a rooftop across the street, Jen watched the Muggles of Privet Drive and the local volunteer fire brigade work desperately to quench the queer blue and white flames that licked hungrily over the whole of Number 4. She wished them luck with that; much like Fiendfyre, her cursed fire was nearly impossible to put out, especially without magic. It was not quite as destructive as its big brother, nor did it form itself into a menagerie of carnivores, but it did obey her unquestioningly, which allowed her to unleash it on her old chamber of horrors without worry that it would spread to the nearby houses.

Not that she would mind all that much if that  _were_  to happen; none of the people living here had ever cared that a little girl was obviously being abused, so she had a legitimate bone to pick with them. Unfortunately, allowing a variant of the darkest fire spell in existence to spread unheeded was a good way to get the Aurors involved, and much to her displeasure, Dora was on rotation tonight. She did  _not_  need her cousin to notice her fleeing the scene of an arson and triple murder.

Petunia's screams, amplified so the whole neighborhood could hear them, transformed into hacking coughs, and Jen smiled. The bubble-head charm must have failed, allowing the smoke filling the house to pour into the bitch's lungs. After another minute, the coughing stopped, and the black witch loosened her restraints on the cursed fire. With the Dursleys all dead, there was no reason to keep the building standing.

The house collapsed in three seconds, and five more after that, she smothered the flames. All that remained was a crater of scorched earth.

She stood, brushing off the last flakes of blood drying on her forearms. To say that rearranging Dudley's internal organs in alphabetical order had been messy was an incredible understatement. At least forcing Vernon to vomit up his entrails after eating his son's had not required her to get her own hands dirty. Burning Petunia alive was, of course, the cleanest kill of the night, but to really get her point across, she had had to force the horse-faced woman to witness the painful deaths of her husband and son.

Just went to show that it was a bad idea to torture a child who was capable of rewriting the rules of reality on a whim. One never knew when she might come back to get even.

The evidence of the night's adventure gone, Jen sighed contentedly and began to sing.

_"Happy birthday to me,  
_ _Happy birthday to me,  
_ _Happy birthday, dear Je~en,  
_ _Happy birthday… to…_ _**me** _ _."_

* * *

A crack rang through the still night air, and a man stepped out of the shadows. Pulling the hood of his cloak up, Voldemort surveyed Godric's Hollow for the first time in thirteen years.

His memory led his feet as he walked a route he had taken numerous times in his mind in the time since he fled Britain following his fall. At the end of his path lay nothing, though he knew there was a quaint little cottage hidden there. On his left sat 15 Lion's Court; on his right, 19. He might not remember the address of his quarry, but it was not hard to figure out.

The Fidelius Charm was an odd spell, seemingly erasing a location from existence unless one was let in on the Secret. Someone could stand outside his own childhood home and, should it be defended thusly, not be able to see or enter it. However, the charm was not perfect; any person who had ever visited the protected place would still remember his times there, just not where it was.

Had Voldemort Flooed or Apparated to the Potters' home in 1981, he would not have been able to return, but he had not. He had  _walked_ , and because of that, he could follow his memory until it suddenly jumped from his arrival at this very spot and his actual entry into the house. He knew that the Potters still lived there by dint of them using again the Fidelius in the first place, and just because he could not enter the cottage did not mean they were safe.

He had demonstrated one flaw in the spell last time. Now, he would exploit another.

" _Prohibentur apparatum. Prohibentur baiulum. Prohibentur focum. Prohibentur scopam._ " He smirked as the palings against Apparation, portkeys, Floo travel, and brooms stabilized. Their only way to safety now was Dumbledore's pet, which was more opportunity than he wished to give them, but there was nothing he could do about that. Phoenixes were not hindered by any ward or defensive charm known to wizard-kind; the only way to stay safe from them was for someone to hide somewhere they had never been and establish anti-scrying spells around his property and himself so that their human owners could not locate him that way.

That said, the chances that Dumbledore or his bird were awake at three-thirty in the morning was remote, and even if they were and did get the Potters to safety, he still would have made his message clear:  _'You can run, you can hide, but I_ _ **can**_ _and_ _ **will**_ _find you. And when I do, I_ _ **will**_ _kill you.'_

Again he raised his wand, his smirk transforming into a vicious smile. " _Ignes inferni!"_  Orange and black flames poured from his wand and morphed into a barrage of snakes, chimeras, and giant wolves that rushed in the direction he pointed, directly between numbers 15 and 19.

He might not be able to  _see_  the Potters' cottage, but that did not mean it was no longer  _there_. Fiendfyre did not truly seek out its prey; it merely burned away everything it came in contact with, including locations under the Fidelius. He had tested this very concept earlier in the month, with Alecto Carrow putting a small shack under the charm and verifying its collapse when he was done. Based on the destructive potential of the spell and the likely defenses on the house, he expected his victims had no more than a minute to flee before the dark magic ate its way into their home and consumed them utterly. It would destroy the houses next to theirs, too, but what did the loss of a few Muggles matter?

He turned away to Disapparate, but he looked over his shoulder at the last moment. "Happy birthday, Danny Potter."

* * *

**I didn't know this before writing the chapter, but the British term 'vest' refers to what in America is a 'tank top' while our 'vest' – more precisely, a sweater vest – is called a 'tank top' across the pond. I'm starting to wonder if this conflicting terminology was deliberate.**

**After the graveyard scene in** _**Princess of the Blacks** _ **, more than a few people asked what Voldemort gained from using Jen's blood in his resurrection ritual. Apparently it was** _**common freaking sense** _ **. That's not scary at all…**

**For anyone who hasn't heard by now, last Friday J.K. revealed that, upon reflection, she thinks pairing Hermione and Ron together was a mistake and that she expects they** _**'would have needed relationship counseling'** _ **. I'm just glad she finally saw the light; after all, it isn't like people on this site have been explaining that exact same thing for the past** _**six years** _ **.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	5. Inherited Treasure

**Mrs. TomMarvoloRiddle:**  While I originally planned for James to be the more compassionate of the Potter parents, he wrote himself out of that characterization right quick. He's the impulsive, cocky Pureblood Gryffindor he was as a teen in canon, and that's going to cause all sorts of problems with Jen; Lily had the right idea about how to approach her. Viktor won't be in this book, but he does have a couple of appearances in the next one, because  _that_  won't cause any relationship problems whatsoever…

**anon1399, Arjenka, Garbouw Deark, TetrisLame, The Sinful:**  Part of the reason I made the DMLE and (to a lesser extent) the Order more competent than in canon is because sane!Voldemort is just  _so much fun_ to write. He's crafty, calculating, clever, and charismatic, which are bad bad  _bad_  traits when you add in that he's absolutely evil. This guy does not mess around.

**The next update will be in three weeks, not two, so I can work on the notes for my other story. That actually makes me pretty sad, as chapter 6 contains the** _**second** _ **major plot twist I foreshadowed in** _**Princess of the Blacks** _ **.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did Harry, Hermione, and Ron spend five years studying centuries of war between humans and goblins, only to blindly trust Griphook and then be astounded that he would betray them? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 5  
** **Inherited Treasure**

Tugging sharply on his robes, a set far more elaborate than he normally wore, Sirius glanced over at his goddaughter. Jen would look like the epitome of placidity to most, but after a year with her in the house he could see the small signs of her anxiety: her fingers tapping faintly against her left thigh, the corners of mouth twitching, her nostrils flaring with half-aborted sighs. "Nervous?"

"What? No. Nothing to worry  _about_." She shrugged in what he guessed was supposed to be a nonchalant way. "Give them a bit of blood, let them do whatever it is they do with it, watch them destroy it, and then we're done. In, out, shouldn't be but a couple of minutes, right?"

"Unless you three screwed something up," he warned her gently, "then there's no telling what will happen."

"We didn't. I'm sure of that."

The Naming of the Heir would be the first true test of the blood adoption Andi and Narcissa had performed on her. All heirs and heiresses of noble Houses had to appear before the Ministry's Chief Genealogist within a week of their fifteenth birthdays to have their blood taken and examined to prove who their parents were; only after it was confirmed that they were indeed in their respective lines of succession would they officially be promoted from heir presumptive to heir apparent. This proceeding was a traditional requirement rather than a legal one, but there  _was_  a precedent for the Wizengamot to pass over an informally acknowledged heir for another member of the family who was more acceptable to the hidebound Purebloods who made up that august body, and Sirius was not going to give House Malfoy any opportunity to take what did not belong to it.

He had another reason to be worried, as well. After today, assuming there were no surprises, her new parentage would be set in stone. There was no turning back now.

The door behind them leading out to the hall chose that moment to open. "—silly tradition, really, but the Dark families won't change unless… Sirius."

An incredulous half-laugh, half-sigh broke through his control. Had Jen brassed someone off in a past life or something? He should have expected this, really, but with all their other worries, none of the Blacks had thought that they might not be the  _only_  ones taking their heirs to the Ministry on their birthdays.

Noticing how rigidly the girl beside him was standing, he forced himself to look at the newcomers and plastered a patently false smile on his face. "James, Lily. What a surprise."

"Hello, Sirius," Lily replied with a weak smile that was much more of a grimace before her eyes shifted to his companion. "And I suppose a  _'happy birthday'_  is in order, Miss Black."

Without even looking, he knew the instant Jen turned around.

Lily did not seem to hear the girl's quiet response. Her eyes had bugged out; her face had paled until it could have made the moon look flushed. She took a staggered step backwards, and Sirius worried for a moment that she might actually faint. Her lips flapped uselessly for several agonizingly long moments before she finally forced out an almost inaudible, "Jenny?"

That soft noise dragged James from his staring match with Sirius, and he honestly choked and spluttered when he looked at his daughter. Sirius would have been laughing his head off if the situation weren't so bloody terrible.

Danny and the Longbottom heir stared at the petrified adults in confusion, and then the birthday boy snarled at his half-sister, "What the hell did you do to them, Black?!"

"I? All I did was thank your mother"—Lily gasped faintly, distracting all three teens for a second—"for her birthday wishes. I'm sure I have  _no_  idea why she reacted as she has."

The stalemate stood for a good five seconds before the door leading to the Chief Genealogist's office opened and ended their tableau. "Lord Black, Miss Black?"

_Thank you, Merlin_. Sirius spun on his heel and nodded to the tiny old wizard. "Yes, that's us."

"I do apologize for the wait, milord; there was a…  _delay_ with the Gringotts representative." The Animagus rolled his eyes at that; if a goblin ever went out of its way  _not_  to cause someone undue trouble, it was a warning to be extra cautious. "Please, come inside."

He nodded again and reached out to prod Jen when he realized she had already turned around and started following the Ministry worker into his small office. Shrugging, he joined her and barely held back a sigh of relief when he could close the door on the Potters' shocked and dismayed expressions.

After pulling out Jen's chair for her, as was only proper for a tradition that went back more than five hundred years, he quickly claimed the seat next to her. The wispy-haired old man smiled genially at the pair; the goblin, on the other hand, shot them an utterly disinterested glance before returning its attention to its previous task, picking dirt from under its claws with a gleaming dagger as long as its drooping nose. Clapping his hands briefly, the genealogist said, "Well, no time like the present. My dear, has the process for today been explained to you?"

"It has."

"Good, good. Hold out your wand hand for me, that's a good girl." Jen rolled her eyes at being treated as if she were a child but allowed him to point his honey-yellow wand at her palm and sweep a weak light over it. "There we go; no point taking a risk of infection." He turned then to the goblin and bit out, "And don't you go making another deep gash like you did to the Nott boy, or I'll make a formal complaint, so help me Merlin!"

"Oh, the horror," the goblin sneered in a droll voice. "Give me your hand,  _grngkt_." Setting its dagger onto the table, the green-skinned creature drew a second, curved knife from its belt and held the weapon as if it were about to stab her. Thankfully – for wizard–goblin relations, Sirius's heart, and the banker's life, knowing Jen's temper – it merely carved a narrow trench across her palm before wiping the tip of the knife on a cloth the genealogist conjured and immediately vanished. Replacing the blade in its sheath, it then opened a narrow wooden box on the desk and pulled out a wicked-looking quill, the feather a deep crimson with a nib crafted from fine golden wire. The shining point ran lightly over the wound, slurping up the blood and leaving an ugly line of purple scar tissue behind.

"Don't you worry, dear. I can fix that up in a jiffy."

While the bureaucrat busily reopened and properly healed the incision, the goblin muttered a few harsh sounds over the feather, stood it onto a sheet of parchment, and leaned back disinterestedly. The quill obediently started moving on its own,  _'Jennifer Bellatrix Black'_  being written with her blood in an elegant, spiky hand that Sirius thought looked vaguely similar to the writing on slips of parchment he had been finding strewn about the library over the previous month. From those words the pen scratched two diagonal lines before adding another pair of names at the ends:  _'James Charlus Potter'_  appeared in the same cramped print Sirius had had to read throughout his seven years at Hogwarts, and then  _'Bellatrix Druella Black'_  came out in a round, flowing style that he never would have connected with the evil witch he had the supreme misfortune of being related to.

The goblin glanced at the parchment briefly before performing a double-take, and the elderly wizard stared in astonishment, only flicking wide eyes to Jen when she withdrew her once again intact hand from his grasp. "Thank you, sir. Was there something else we had to do, or are we finished?"

"I… Well… This is  _highly_  irregular," the old man finally managed. "I… I presumed she was  _your_  daughter, Lord Black."

"And I can understand where the confusion comes from, but she unfortunately isn't mine." He flashed a quick smile in hopes he could calm the other man down before he had a heart attack. "As I have no children of my own, she is next in line for the position of Head. She was also born before Bellatrix was convicted to Azkaban, so that's not an issue."

"I understand. I sincerely apologize for any insult I may have given you, Scion Black; I assure—"

She raised a hand to cut him off and complemented Sirius's smile with one of her own. "It is quite all right. Yours wasn't exactly an  _uncommon_  reaction."

"Thank you, my dear." He plucked the slip of parchment from in front of the goblin and, after copying the names of both parents onto a form, dipped the corner into the flame of the candle on his desk and let the Blacks watch the blood-covered material burn to ash so they could be assured that no one would be able to use that vital fluid as a focus with which to ensorcel or curse her. All sorts of nasty things could be done with blood.

The pair stood, and the goblin chose that moment to ask, "When will you come to claim your vault?"

"My vault?"

"Yes." The banker shot a sharp-toothed, feral grin at Jen. "You are the only issue of the vault-holders. With them incarcerated, it and its contents belong to you."

The white-haired genealogist spluttered as he caught on. " _'Only issue_ '? She isn't a Lestrange!"

"No, she isn't, but her  _mother_  has full access rights to the vault, and therefore, so does she."

"Why are you suggesting she claim the Lestranges' vault?" Sirius demanded suspiciously.

The goblin shrugged and sheathed the straight dagger it had been fiddling with. "Rather than questioning Gringotts's goodwill, you should simply be thankful I am telling you this at all,  _human_."

_**Gringotts's**_ _goodwill? What's the ploy here?_  The lone goblin clan in Britain were bound to provide banking services to wizards and witches, but everyone knew they were by no means helpful. Goblins were spiteful, treacherous creatures, ever greedy and obsessed with gold and silver; only a fool would trust them without an iron-clad contract to hold them to their words.

That was what made this goblin's current offer so strange. Each vault was charged an annual sum based on its security, as well as quarterly upkeep fees. If a vault remained unclaimed, Gringotts would continue withdrawing their fees until there was no money left, at which point the goblins could declare the vault-holders bankrupt and use that justification to plunder whatever artifacts were inside. What extraordinary circumstances had caused them to deviate from that behavior and inform Jen of her rights to the Lestranges' property?

_Wait a minute…_  Memories of his own dealings with the bank some eighteen months ago resurfaced, and the ulterior motive became clear. "When the Ministry sentenced the Lestranges to Azkaban, it froze their accounts, too, didn't it?"

The goblin was eloquent in its silence.

He smirked.  _ **That's**_ _why they want Jen to claim the vault. If a vault-holder is sent to prison and there are no others with any rights to it, the Ministry can freeze the account, just like they did with my personal vault; should a century pass without anyone claiming it, the money inside comes under the_ _ **Ministry's**_ _control, not the goblins'. Not to mention, so long as the vault is sealed, the bank isn't permitted to withdraw any fees. They've gone almost fourteen years without squeezing a single piece of gold out of it; that must make them_ _ **furious**_ _. If they recognize Jen as having rights to it due to being Bellatrix's daughter, however, the Ministry's order would be immediately nullified._

"I don't know, Jen. There's no telling what hoops you'll have to jump through if you take them up on their offer," he cautioned, though his prankster's smile almost certainly tipped her off that he was up to  _something_. "Might be a good idea to let it lie fallow for another decade or five."

"If there are any restrictions, they were not imposed by Gringotts," spat the goblin. It shoved itself to its feet and stalked to the fireplace, a thrown stone turning the flames emerald green. "Goldfinger will have the necessary documents."

Only after the goblin was gone did Jen turn to him. "And just  _what_  was that all about?"

"I'll explain it on the way to grab Ted. We're not going into the goblins' den without a solicitor." He turned to the genealogist with a sheepish expression. "Sorry we ran your help off."

The old wizard shrugged. "Can't say I exactly mind. Gnarltooth's the worst of the blood magic users Gringotts sends me; compared to it, the others are downright pleasant. I'm sure another will be here in a few minutes, not that that's anything you need to worry about. I will  _personally_  file these in the Hall of Records while I wait," he added in a conspiratorial voice.

"Thank you very much."

"Out of curiosity," Jen asked as they walked to the door, "does being my mother's daughter grant me authority over House Lestrange, as well?"

"I'm afraid not, my dear," the genealogist laughed. "The goblins can play whatever games they like, but you're not a member of that House. You'll just have to content yourself with being the scion of the Blacks."

The girl sighed with exaggerated regret, and godfather and goddaughter left the cramped room. He steeled himself and told James, "It'll be a few more minutes' wait, I'm afraid. I think I scared the goblin away."

"Only you, Sirius," the other man joked, though his voice was strained, not that Sirius could blame him. This recent discovery could not be easy for the Potters. He quickly ushered Jen out into the hallway, completely missing the sidelong glance she gave Lily as they passed.

* * *

"No, no, you three go on. I'll wait right here," Lily told James as the man looked back at her. He shrugged before closing the door to the Chief Genealogist's office behind him. Finally alone, still sitting on the same bench she had collapsed onto ten minutes earlier, she let out a sigh that sounded suspiciously like a sob to her ears and cradled her head in her hands. "Can this day get any worse?"

She had woken to the cottage's alarm charms clanging desperately in the wee hours of the morning, a peek outside revealing a writhing mass of fiery serpents trying to force their way inside the house. When their emergency portkeys failed and she was unable to Apparate herself and Danny to safety, she had been sure that they were going to die. Indeed, Fawkes had finally flashed into the air above them just as a fearsome wolf forged from flame forced its way through the front door. The family of three had survived, the phoenix ferrying them to the Longbottoms' manor, but their home of seventeen years had fallen under the assault of that terrible spell; Fiendfyre, Professor Dumbledore had called it.

They had their wands, a few irreplaceable belongings, and each other, but nothing else survived.

_Thank goodness Anastasia was out hunting_ , she thought, recalling the sweet Tawny Owl she had owned since shortly after she graduated Hogwarts.  _And now I'm more glad than ever that Danny is fine without having a familiar of his own. There is no way we would have been able to find and catch an animal in the midst of that inferno_.

She should have known that the total loss of their home despite the protection afforded by the Fidelius Charm was a dread omen of events to come, but she had convinced herself that the Death Eaters' attack would be the worst thing she would face today. Augusta had welcomed them graciously into her house despite the unconscionable hour, and they had rushed to Gringotts as soon as it was open to order a new key for their vault be cast. Finally, they had arrived at the Ministry so Danny and Neville could be formally recognized as the heirs of their Houses, but then…

Then, seeing Jenny, seeing her  _eyes_ , she had known that the day had truly become a waking nightmare.

Jenny's eyes weren't green.

It was such a small thing, and yet it was such a horrible thing, too. When the twins were still very young, she became somewhat concerned about her little girl's appearance. Danny had been a seemingly perfect blend of her and James: he had brown hair – a few shades lighter than his daddy's – with red undertones, her cheekbones, and of course her emerald green eyes, all set in James's face. Her firstborn, though, had looked nothing like Lily barring those same eyes, and though she shared a few traits with James, namely his unruly black hair and sharp chin, there was little overall semblance. It was only on their first birthday that Charlus had revealed where Jenny had gotten her looks when he produced a photograph of his own mother, Dorea Potter.

_No_ , she viciously remembered,  _Dorea Potter_ _ **née Black**_ _. Even as a baby, she favored that side of her heritage._

Seeing Jenny again in Flourish and Blott's the previous summer had been a nasty shock, for the years had only enhanced that family resemblance; for a brief moment, she herself had actually thought that the teenaged girl was  _Andromeda's_  daughter. The red blindfold, that innocent strip of cloth that was the shameful symbol of her past stupidity, had hidden Jenny's eyes, but Lily had been so sure that that last link to her true family remained.

Now even that was gone.

_And the worst part? The worst part is that I can't even believe that it was a glamour meant to hurt us. It was obvious from Sirius's reaction that they hadn't expected to run into us today, and why would she walk around with a disguise over her eyes just to go out in public? Legacy, Trace-less wand or not, I didn't see her draw it, let alone wave it around._

_No, her eyes were purple because that's what they look like now, and she made sure I knew it when they left. That look she gave me_ … Lily shuddered, for Jenny's gaze had not been sad or angry or even furtively gleeful. Those eyes had been cold and flat; they could have been carved from actual amethyst for all the emotion they displayed as they pierced the woman who had carried and given birth to their bearer.

Hot tears burned twin paths down her cheeks as the full weight of the morning's discovery fell upon her. She and James had, good intentions or bad, thrown Jenny away. They had not been there for her growing up; they had not checked with Petunia to make sure she was at the very least happy and healthy; they had not even filed a  _birth certificate_  for her, for God's sake! They could not have heaped more pain and misery on her slender shoulders if they had actively tried to!

And as if in retaliation for that abandonment, Jenny had thrown away the lone trait that showed she was not a born Black.

For a brief moment Lily could feel her sobs clawing their way up her threat and threatening to choke her, but with a Herculean effort she forced them down, her mental fortitude reinforced by the fire she now felt burning in her belly. This was not the end. It  _could not_ be the end.

She was a Gryffindor; when the path before her became arduous and perilous, she would gird herself in her courage, take up her wand, and continue down it. She had already known that connecting with her daughter would be a difficult task. She had already known that walking down this road would hurt. She had already known that she could not expect Jenny to meet her halfway, nor did she have the right to even ask.

But she would not give up. This was more important than comfort or happiness or pride. She had abandoned her own flesh and blood, tossed a little girl who was totally reliant on her into a life that, as far as she could determine, could only be described as a living hell. Her actions had subjected Jenny to thirteen years of agony, and if it took thirteen years of heartbreak to pay for that transgression, she would accept each and every one with open arms.

Whatever pain Jenny threw at her, she was ready for it.

* * *

"Every time I think that Gringotts's service has improved, you goblins do something that proves me wrong," the brunet solicitor sighed. The roll of his eyes caused Jen to smile, though she forced herself not to laugh aloud. That would most certainly not improve these 'negotiations'. "You seem to believe there's a fool in this room, and you're quite right, but unfortunately that fool is in the  _mirror_."

"I assure you, human, these terms are quite good. Far better than I should be offering you."

Ted laughed mockingly, clearly angering the corpulent goblin on the other side of the desk. "Goldfinger, you want to charge a fifty galleon closure fee with a fifteen percent monthly interest rate – compounded, no less – for every month that fee went unpaid since  _November of 1981_. Even without an abacus, I know that would have to be on the order of hundreds of millions of galleons. It would be cheaper and easier to wait for the Ministry to seize it and then take it back from them.

"Sirius, it is my professional recommendation that Jen not claim the Lestrange Vault."

" _Nktt glkld trntk_!" the goblin snapped at them, and even without knowing a single word of Gobbledegook, the black witch was sure that what was just uttered was not something repeated in polite conversation. "Fine, fine! What would it take for her to sign the blasted form?!"

"Dropping the fee entirely would probably be a good start."

Goldfinger's responding growl sounded extraordinarily like two rocks grinding together. "Never going to happen. I can raise the fee to ninety galleons, but in return she only has to pay seven years of interest on it."

"Ten galleons, no interest."

" _Some_  interest is nonnegotiable. Sixty galleons, ten percent monthly for eight years."

"Oh, it most certainly  _is_  negotiable. Thirty-five galleons."

"This is a bank, not a charity. Fifty at twelve quarterly for five."

"Not a charity, but it's not a mine or a mint, either. Twenty at two yearly for one."

"One hundred at six yearly for three."

"Make it simple interest, and you've got a deal."

"Done." Neither individual clasped hands, and Goldfinger instead dipped the end of a thin stick in a bowl of ink before quickly crossing out portions of the two-foot-long scroll of parchment and writing in the new terms. "Is this to your satisfaction, human?"

Ted glanced over the additions with a practiced eye and nodded. "It will do. Jen, go ahead and sign it."

"Finally," the goblin muttered after she had slowly and uncomfortably written her name on the line her uncle indicated. Shoving his wide girth away from his desk, Goldfinger waddled to a short bookcase filled with thin slabs of granite. He ran a long finger over the edges of several, and eventually he tugged one out and placed his hand over a web of shallow scratches. Several more guttural words caused the etchings to glow gold; when the light faded, Goldfinger returned the dark grey tile to its space and nearly threw a tiny tin rectangle at her. "That will inform the tellers that you are authorized to access your vault. You can change the requirement there, as well; your mother and her husband both preferred to use their wands to identify themselves. Now get out."

The three humans stepped through the doorway and immediately appeared in the large gilded lobby, despite the fact that they had needed to take a circuitous route to get to Goldfinger's office. Obviously, the goblins were not huge proponents of hospitality.

Jen could not help but recall the section of her history text that detailed the formation of Gringotts bank as they waited in line for a teller. During the goblin rebellion of 1756, the last remnants of the goblin force had been forced back to their stronghold in the northern Pennines mountain range, and the British Wizarding Army then spent seven weeks attempting fruitlessly to break through the underground fortress's defenses. Just as the Minister was weighing the risks and rewards of using Fiendfyre on the mountains, so the tale went, a messenger from the Gringott clan brought word that the clan leader wished a parley. Their discourse lasted long into the night, but a deal was eventually struck. A platoon of wizards was guided into the fortress through a series of hidden tunnels the next day and opened the main gate for the rest of the army to enter through.

Once the war was over, the sole remaining clan of British goblins demanded that the Ministry uphold its end of the bargain. No one wanted the fighting to continue, so the goblins were given the control of the humans' gold that they had wanted for so long. The wizards, though, got the last laugh; the clan leader was so desperate for the war to be over that he neglected to read the magically binding treaty thoroughly before signing it and thereby missed the section that prevented the greedy and violent race from raising arms against the Wizarding World ever again. Their last native enemy defeated, the army was soon disbanded except for the elite Aurora Company, which had been tasked with the protection of the Minister and the Wizengamot. Aurora Company was later merged with the DMLE to defend the country against dark mages of all stripes, becoming the Aurors.

The trio finally arrived at the teller's desk and presented the metal chip. The goblin gave it only a passing glance before returning it and pulling a small leather bag from behind his desk that clinked when he tied it to his belt. "Follow me."

The goblin strode across the hall and through a different door than the one they had used to reach Goldfinger. Entering a rough stone hallway, the quartet eventually found themselves in front of a wide tunnel with a set of iron train tracks running through it. A sharp whistle called an empty rail cart to them from the darkness beyond, and after piling inside, they sped away.

Rather than take in what few sights there were, Jen simply leaned back with her eyes closed and enjoyed the wind whipping past her. All too soon, they stopped in front of a wide landing, the staircases she could feel at the other end blocked from sight by a large, white-scaled dragon, its wings sheared off near the second set of shoulder joints – likely to prevent any attempts at escape – and its milky eyes an all-too-familiar sign of blindness. Much as she did, however, the creature had clearly found a way to compensate for its disability, for it snorted hot, dry air directly at them as they approached.

Opening the bag at his belt, the goblin pulled out a small brass bell and started ringing it, the sound magnifying itself over and over again until the witch could feel her bones vibrating and the stalactites shuddering. The great beast was not unaffected; instead, it quickly retreated to an alcove to one side of the platform, thick chains clamped to its hind legs rattling at each movement.

They climbed one of the sets of steps to a flat stretch of vertical stone. The goblin laid a spindly hand upon the rock, and it melted as though it were ice in the face of a summer afternoon to reveal a wide cave, filled floor to ceiling with all manner of ornate miscellanea. Goblets and silverware, shining suits of armor, crystal decanters filled with potions in a variety of colors, preserved skins of lions and tigers and dragonets, a jewel-encrusted cauldron that upon closer examination proved to be a fire crab's shell.

And, of course, mountains of gold and silver and bronze coins. The Lestranges' wealth was not quite at the Blacks' level, but it was clear why Arcturus had written a marriage contract between the heir of this Noble House and the eldest Black of the then-most-recent generation.

She wandered throughout the cavern, feeling the charms and curses laid upon each artifact. Bellatrix – and likely the woman's husband or brother-in-law, as well – had spelled all of the vault's contents so that they would burn with intense heat upon skin contact and multiply repeatedly. If someone had been unfortunate enough to break into the vault, he or she would have been buried under a heavy pile of red-hot metal and slowly baked to death. Thankfully for her, a continuous stream of finishing charms, the flick of her fingers masked as idle tapping against her thigh, rendered everything safe to handle.

It was only when she had reached the halfway point of her exploration at the very back of the vault that her interest was piqued by one object in particular. Safely hidden from the goblin's sight behind the gleaming piles of money, she waved her hand to dispel the curses laid upon it, the spells far darker than the others in this room, and summoned it to her grasp. It was not much to look at, just a small gold chalice with two delicately wrought handles and a badger embossed on each side. To any other witch, it would have been pretty but of little inherent value.

Jen, however, was not any witch. Her sonar felt something impossible: the cup had a tiny  _magical core_ hidden inside it, and not just any core. This core was an exact match to that of the Dark Lord Voldemort.

"Baron preserve me, he created a soul jar," she breathed. A magical core could not be found anywhere in the body; physically, magical humans were identical to non-magical ones. No, the font of magic was part of a wizard's  _soul_ , so the only way for an inanimate object to possess one was for someone to rip a chunk of his essence away from the rest and pour it into another vessel.

That Voldemort could and would do this was not a terrible surprise. She had discovered at his little 'reincorporation party' not six weeks past that the man was a black wizard, specifically a soul mage. Mutilating one's very being and strewing it about like flotsam from a storm was perfectly in character for that particular cabal of wizards. No, what truly shocked her was that he would leave such a precious thing in someone else's –  _anyone_  else's – care. Soul jars were meant to be so zealously guarded that they put a dragon's hoarding instincts to shame; for him to gift Bellatrix with his tether to the living realm was a sign of just how much he trusted her and just how much she worshiped him.

A sharp, cruel smile lit her face.  _Well, it's mine, now. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do with it, but this is just too good to leave laying around_. He was going to regret trying to kill her and imprisoning and torturing Cissy. She would make sure of  _that_.

Wandering back to the two men and the goblin, she asked in an innocent voice, "Is there a fee to transfer gold or artifacts from one vault to another?"

"Indeed there is," the banker answered with a greedy grin. "Five percent for coinage and fifty galleons per tonne, rounded to the next highest full measure."

"And those rates are permanent, correct? They don't change if you exceed a preset limit?"

The green being blinked, his happy expression melting off his face. "Yes…"

"Good." She left the vault, chalice swinging in circles around her index finger. "Have the entirety of this wealth transferred to the main Black vault – artifacts first, then the coins, of course – and then close the Lestrange account."

"You— You can't do that!"

"Why not? After all," she shot him a smirk of her own, "I  _am_  the sole person who both has rights to this vault and is not currently serving time in prison. I'd say I can do with it whatever I please."

Cringing now, likely at the fees this vault would no longer produce, the goblin hesitantly looked to Sirius. "With a transfer of this magnitude, I can't actually authorize it without the recipient's approval—"

"Technically, she  _can_  give you that approval, considering that she's now the legally recognized heir of House Black," Sirius interrupted with a shrug, though his smile belied his indifferent attitude. "But just in case, I, Sirius Orion Black, the primary vault-holder of the Black family vault as its Head of House, approve the transfer of all the Lestrange vault's contents. Even if we qualify for a higher upkeep bracket, the increase will be negligible compared to the cost of keeping this thing open. We'll take care of the parchmentwork when we get back to the surface, and I'll expect the transfer to be complete within forty-eight hours."

The goblin slumped his shoulders and listlessly guided them back to the cart, and Sirius sidled up next to her. "You know, I'd think most teens would love having a vault all their own that no one could access without their permission," he whispered.

She shrugged; he had no idea that she  _already_  had a private account, a minimum-security vault she had inherited from Elsie upon the Haitian's demise. "It's not like you'd ever tell me no if I wanted to take some of the money out unless it was a truly exorbitant sum. Besides, it's going to be mine one day, anyway, when I become Head. Might as well have everything in one place, for sheer convenience if nothing else."

* * *

**I considered naming this chapter "Rocket-Powered Bitch Slap", for obvious reasons.**

**Sometimes I wonder if I'm too emotionally invested in this story. I mean, I should not be moved by the obstacles faced by** _**imaginary characters** _ **inside** _**my own head** _ **, but looking at the shit I've already thrown at Lily, as well as what else is in store for her, I can't help but wish she would just give up before I hurt her any more.**

**Calculating the interest rate the goblins first "offered" out of curiosity, I found that the closure fee would have come out to just under 725** _**billion** _ **galleons. Yes, billion with a B. That's far, far,** _**far** _ **more than the contents of the vault could** _**possibly** _ **be worth, but let's be honest: if Griphook is supposed to be representative of goblins as a whole, canon makes it clear that that race has more than its fair share of deceitful, backstabbing little thieves.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	6. Meeting With Her Master

**For those of you who don't read** _**Faery Heroes** _ **, that story is rapidly drawing to a close, and I need to figure out what project I'm going to work on next alongside this series. So, I'm going to do something risky and put it up for a vote. There's a poll and a list of plot summaries on my profile; pick the ones you like or send me a PM with another suggestion. I'll leave it up for… a month, probably, but please don't put this off to the last minute.**

**Crossoverpairinglover, TetrisLame:**  I think the big reason the goblins are portrayed as a nice but misunderstood race in some stories is that we, the readers, want there to be at least  _one_  halfway decent society in the HP-verse we can root for.

**erbkaiser:**  I think I got my wires crossed somewhere between  _Princess_  and this book, so the way the Potter family is going to go from here on out is that Dorea married Charlus Sr. and named her son after his father.

**oregonbird (chapter 2):**  Narcissa was unconscious for several hours due to magical exhaustion, not her physical injuries.  _That_  is nothing Jen can do anything about.

**Here is the second and last plot twist I foreshadowed in** _**Princess** _ **. Honestly, I'm a little nervous about how this chapter will be received. It's… different.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did Voldemort immediately accept Snape back into the Death Eater fold despite not knowing which side the potioneer was really on? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 6  
** **Meeting with Her Master**

James tapped his fingers against the table in a rapid, irregular beat as he waited. Around him, various members of the Order chattered in the time before Dumbledore arrived and began the meeting, but at the moment he was not concerned about that. He already knew the reason for gathering the group so soon after their previous get-together, and he knew who was to blame, too.

Not  _directly_ , of course, but one who definitely had a hand in it.

The door to the Longbottoms' formal dining room silently swung open, the movement catching his eye, but his bloody-minded eagerness faded again when he saw that it was just Sirius, accompanied like last time by Malfoy. Oh, she might claim that she and her husband had split, and Sirius might have been an idiot enough to believe her, even, but he could see the woman's plots as clear as day. If Malfoy hadn't reported everything she heard at the last meeting to her master, he would eat his broomstick.

He grimaced.  _Well, I'd eat my broomstick if I_ _ **still had it**_ _. Two Firebolts and a Nimbus 2001 lost in less than a year, and no chance we'll be able to replace them any time soon_. The Potter family, while rich enough to qualify as a Noble House ever since his…  _less than respectable_  ancestors had 'collected' their wealth from a number of other Houses, was not rolling in galleons like the Malfoys, and certainly not like the Longbottoms or the Blacks. Their cozy cottage was a total loss, and between buying another house, furnishing it, warding it, replacing all their clothes and books…

Money was going to be a little tight for the foreseeable future, especially since neither he nor Lily had had to work since leaving school. His wife did a little brewing on the side, outsourcing for J. Pippin's Potions on Finans Alley, but that had always been more of a hobby of hers than a real job, the gold she earned from it going right back to the apothecaries for the ingredients she would need for her next batch. Maybe she could scale up some while he worked as a tutor? He had always been a deft hand at Transfiguration, and many Houses hired tutors the year before their children's first year at Hogwarts so the kids could have some practice with wand motions and simpler spells before they were surrounded by their peers.

Yes, that could work. Danny would be off at Hogwarts, which was already paid for, and…

Turning his eyes toward the Blacks, he barely withheld a scowl. Dumbledore had been less than helpful that summer on the custody front. He understood that stopping an insane Dark Lord was more important in the grand scheme of things than returning one teenager to her real family, but still! Jenny was his daughter, and yet she was within the Malfoys' sphere of influence. Who knew what honeyed lies that evil witch was pouring in her ears?

Unfortunately, there was nothing to be done for it at the moment. Sirius's cousin Andromeda, the woman he had said many times during their teen years was the only member of the family he could stand, was married to a solicitor if James remembered right. Ted Tonks would have barristers he knew who would jump to represent an Ancient and Most Noble House. He and Lily, on the other hand, no longer had the funds necessary for a drawn-out legal battle.

He was just thankful that Sirius had unintentionally strengthened their claim that very morning. Blood did not lie, and it was now a matter of public record whose daughter she was.

Again the door opened, and he forced those thoughts away for the moment. There was something else he needed to handle right now. He rounded the table and strode towards his target, and his fist, clenched so tight that he was surprised his fingernails had not broken the skin of his palm, flew unerringly at its target.

Snape slammed into the wall, one hand holding his broken nose.

"This is your fault!" he shouted, his words grabbing the attention of everyone who had yet to notice. "You're supposed to be  _our_  spy, aren't you?! You're supposed to tell us what You-Know-Who's planning so we can get there and stop him! But you can't pass on what you know about an attack on us?! How much of our strategy have you already relayed to your master, you treacherous—"

His accusation was cut off when the oily-haired sneak threw himself away from the wall and returned the punch. Without something behind him like Snape had had, James fell heavily to the floor and glared up at the other man.

Snape took a moment to draw his wand and, ignoring all the other wands aimed at him, cast a quick spell at his overlarge nose to straighten it back into position. "I have no idea what delusion you are laboring under, nor do I particularly care, but I assure you,  _I_  am not to blame for whatever it is, nor will I consent to be your punching bag. Attack me again, and I will ensure you regret it."

"Don't even try to wriggle out of this, you slimy bastard!" James roared, climbing back to his feet. "You're a spy, I'll bet, but not ours! You stand there and smile smugly while figuring out what you're going to tell him as soon as you leave."

"James, that's enough," Lily scolded.

"No, I want to hear him admit it. You were never on our side, were you?!"

"Your side specifically, Potter? I would rather kill myself," the Dark wizard answered with a sneer. "Despite my…  _extreme distaste_  for your odious company and your unending and undeserved arrogance, however, I am very much on the  _Order's_ side in this war. Now, are you going to elaborate on exactly what drivel you have been spouting, or shall I assume all the Bludger hits to your head have finally caught up to you?"

James opened his mouth, but the words refused to come out. Beside him, Lily lowered her wand. "Last night, someone attacked our home despite it being under the Fidelius. They used a dark fire spell that Professor Dumbledore said was called Fiendfyre." Snape's pasty face paled further at that. "So you  _do_ know about it."

"More like I found about it this morning. The Dark Lord called the Death Eaters together and claimed that he had struck a blow to our morale and proved that we are no match for him. He also mentioned using Fiendfyre. I thought he was referring to somewhere important in the Muggle world." He shook his head in disbelief. "How did you survive?"

"Fawkes came and saved us, but the cottage is gone. Did you really not know about this until today?"

"No, Lily, I didn't. I swear to Merlin, I had no idea." The potioneer ran his hands through his greasy hair before almost whispering, "If you need somewhere to stay, I still own my old house. It isn't heavily warded, so you wouldn't be safe there long-term, but for a few weeks…"

"Thank you, Severus, but Augusta has been kind enough to let us live here while we look for a new place. Besides, I doubt you want the three of us underfoot for the rest of the summer," she added with a weak smile.

"Who said  _I_  would be there? I do have quarters in Hogwarts I can retreat to."

Finally grown frustrated of his wife's inexplicable friendship with the foul man –  _What in Merlin's name can she possibly see in him?_ , he wondered, not for the first time – James pulled out his wand and dispelled the silencing charm. "You'll have to excuse me if I find it hard to accept that you had nothing to do with this. After all, you're a spy, or so you say, yet you want us to believe that you just  _missed_  You-Know-Who planning something this big? Either you're working for the other side or you're totally incompetent; which is it,  _Snivellus_?"

"James!"

"There are times I envy the simplistic black-and-white worldview you have, where you can simply ignore everything that does not support your preconceived notions," Snape sneered in a silky voice, "but then I remember that achieving that would require me to be a  _blithering idiot_. The Dark Lord is fully capable of attacking on his own; he does not require the approval or the permission of the Inner Circle to do anything. Indeed, if you recall from the last time we stood against him, his solitary raids were the cause of some of the worst atrocities we had to deal with, second only to when he gave the Lestranges free rein.

"If you do not like how I do my job, however, please, show me how it's done.  _You_  can go and listen to the Dark Lord's plans and then report back here."

He rolled his eyes. "Yes, because  _I_  want to spend my time rubbing elbows with  _your_  best mates."

"Spoken like a true cowardly Lion." The three whipped their heads around to stare at Malfoy, who merely smirked back at them while she rolled a wineglass between her fingers. James flushed as he realized they had completely forgotten about their audience. "You drone on and on about your courage and your chivalry, but when it's time to back up those claims, all your bravado evaporates as you desperately make excuses. Who are  _you_  to insult the one person in this room who is proving his loyalty to the cause?"

"What did she say?!"

"I'm standing against You-Know-Who, too!"

"We've  _all_  been loyal!"

Sirius nudged his cousin. "Narcissa, now is really not the time or place…"

"It is the  _only_  time and place," she snapped back. "Does anyone really think his task is as easy as listening at keyholes? Every time the Death Eaters meet, he is surrounded by the very men he opposes and has to hide his true opinions beneath a veneer so that he is not  _murdered where he stands_. One mistake, one wrong word, and his life would be forfeit. I doubt there is anyone else in this room who—"

"Narcissa." The woman twisted in her chair to see Snape's blank face. "I thank you for your defense, but it is unnecessary. Popularity is nothing I care about."

She huffed and turned away. "Fine. You always were too generous for your own good."

All the Order members were quiet as Snape moved to his usual shadowed corner of the room and Lily dragged her husband back to their seats. James did not resist, though he eyed both Slytherin alumni distrustfully.  _The others may fall for their act, but I won't. Everyone knows that you can't trust a Snake; every word out of their mouths is a lie._

The door opened again, and Dumbledore entered the room before sweeping his eyes over the silent assembly and frowning. "What did I miss?"

* * *

_Finally_ , Severus thought when Albus dismissed everyone.  _I don't understand why he even called this meeting tonight; it isn't as if there was anything worth discussing._  Yes, Lily and her family losing their home was terrible, but there was nothing that could be done about that now. Nor were there any suggestions about how to avoid a repeat of such an occurrence; if the Dark Lord was capable of attacking a home he could not even find, what other defenses did they have in their arsenal?

He was distracted by his musings when Narcissa gave him a slight smile before she sauntered out the door. Strangely, Black then looked directly at him and offered a short, sharp nod. It was not  _friendly_  by any measure, not that Severus would have accepted it had it been, but it was far more polite than he would have ever expected the immature nobleman to act towards him. In hindsight, however, the potioneer acknowledged that the few interactions they had had in the past couple of months had been much less violent than he would have predicted.

Considering they had spent all seven years of Hogwarts at each other's throats, it was a disconcerting change.

Moody shot him a sharp glare and stomped out of the room, leaving Severus alone with his employer. After a moment, Albus sighed. "I'm sorry that you had to go through that with James earlier. If I had known he was going to attack you like that, I would have left the parchmentwork to finish later tonight."

"Peeking in people's heads again?" he drawled. The elderly wizard might not use mind magics as often as he did, but he was under no misconception about who was the greater Legilimens.

Rather than deflect his mocking accusation, Albus frowned. "I didn't have to. Mrs. Malfoy was more than generous and let me view her memory of the event while everyone was discussing alternatives to the Fidelius."

He had to try hard not to roll his eyes at that. Narcissa never could leave well enough alone when it came to supposed threats against him. She had a bit of a soft spot for him, had ever since the Christmas holidays of his first year when the then-sixth-year lured him into a broom closet. She memory charmed him and the prefect who discovered them afterwards – something he did not discover until his own sixth year, when he started meditating in order to curb his temper so he would not risk insulting his closest friend once again – but their strange tryst went a long way in explaining just why she had been his unofficial protector for those first two years of school and why she kept in occasional contact after her graduation.

Several times over the intervening decades he had toyed with the idea of telling her that he remembered what they had done, but he did not have so many friends that he could casually toss one away should she react badly.

"When I saw your eyes glaze over, I thought you were simply as bored with the pointless chatter as I was."

"It was a welcome distraction, yes," the headmaster admitted, "but Voldemort  _did_  reveal an unexpected weakness in the charm. Once again, I am beyond disappointed that the boy I knew chose to turn his intellect and power to ruin and destruction."

This time Severus did roll his eyes. "But he did, and we have to deal with it."

"True, true. Now, however, I am curious why you chose to stay behind. Is there something you need to tell me away from the others' earshot?"

"Unfortunately," he muttered. What he had to say was  _not_  good news. "The Dark Lord recently began searching for someone. Professor Slughorn."

Albus frowned. "Horace? I wonder why."

"The reason is obvious." The old wizard looked at him questioningly, and he glanced away at the mounds of candle wax that had accumulated on the surface of the table. "I… have not been completely honest with you. When you asked me if I would resume spying on the Dark Lord as I did last time, there was a tacit understanding between us that I would have access to vital information due to my position as a member of the Inner Circle. That has, unfortunately, not come to pass. He stripped me of my station and told me that if I wanted it back, I would have to prove myself to him once again."

"He no longer trusts you." It was not a question.

Severus grimaced. "Why would he? I spent the past thirteen years under the influence of his greatest enemy. I worked to keep him from the Philosopher's Stone. I did not return to his side when he called. He is rightfully suspicious that I might have turned traitor."

"Yet he has made no moves against you."

"He has no  _proof_. I am the only Potions Master he has in his service, and considering the support I gave him before my defection, he had to weigh my usefulness against my potential disloyalty. By demoting me to the level of an average Death Eater, he has minimized the threat I pose without losing me entirely, but I fear the scales may now be tilting against me." He snorted. "I can say without boasting that I am a fantastic potioneer, but despite my talent, Slughorn is still better. If he has the country's best brewer in his clutches, he has no need for the second best, especially not when he cannot determine whose side I am truly on."

With a long sigh, the hero of the Grindelwald War nodded. "I will send feelers out to see if I can find Horace before Voldemort does. Mundungus should have some contacts he can get in touch with." He eyed the younger wizard knowingly. "However, should Voldemort locate him first, or even if you think he is close, leave and come back to Hogwarts immediately. Your life is far more valuable than the information you can bring us, do not forget that."

Severus withheld a wince and simply nodded. The other man was too sharp sometimes; how else would Albus know that, left to his own devices, he would have delayed his escape as long as he could, possibly too long, in hopes of finding some last tidbit that could prove useful? "Very well. In the meantime, I will keep my eyes and ears open. The Dark Lord will soon learn that his attempt on the Potters was unsuccessful, and I have no doubts that he will eventually try again."

"Thank you. It warms an old man's heart to hear that you are finally setting aside your grudge against James," Albus said, his eyes twinkling.

"Do not misunderstand," the darker of the pair warned. "I am not doing this for Potter or his blasted spawn; their lives do not matter a whit to me. I am doing this  _solely_  because losing her husband or her son or, Merlin forbid,  _both_  would utterly destroy Lily, and  _that_ is not something I will allow."

He had made that mistake once, when he relayed part of the prophecy to the Dark Lord and unintentionally turned the monster against Lily's family. Heartless as it may sound, he had never been so glad as when he found out that she and her husband had left their son in the care of her father-in-law so they could join the Order against the Death Eaters in Glastonbury that Halloween. Had they not, had they stayed at home where they were 'safe', he did not think he would have been able to survive.

It was the same reason he was willing to risk his life to spy on the Death Eaters again. Indirectly or not, he had nearly murdered his very best friend, and such a horrendous action required an equivalent act of remorse. Surely there was no greater tormentor than one's own guilty conscience.

Albus's sigh recalled him to the real world. "I truly wish you two would learn to get along."

"Whatever issues exist between James Potter and me are  _our_  concern, not yours." He glared suspiciously at the old man. "Keep your meddling hands to yourself."

* * *

Jen awoke to nothingness. No sound, no light… no sonar. She could not even reach for the world's magic.

Needless to say, she panicked for a few moments.

_Calm down, calm down_ , she told herself sternly even as her fear threatened again to overwhelm her. Not  _once_  since she sacrificed her core had she ever been without her sonar, without her magic. She was alone, weak, totally vulnerable. It was not a feeling she enjoyed.  _The last I remember, I had gone to bed. This… this is just a dream. A nightmare, admittedly, but now that I know it's not real, I can wake myself up. Somehow._

As if in response to her thoughts, her sense of touch slowly returned, letting her feel the smooth hardness of packed dirt beneath her feet and the chill of the air against her nude body. Recalling a bit of common knowledge, she fumbled for her left wrist and twisted, grimacing at the sharp ache and shuddering at what it meant. She had always heard that one could not feel pain in dreams. If that was true, it ruled out the only explanation she had.

Sound came back next. Her panting gasps were harsh to her ears, and she did her best to force them into a regular rhythm. She called out loudly, hoping to hear an echo so she might determine how large the space she was located in was, but her voice merely dissipated into silence.  _Dirt and no echo. Am I outside somewhere? But if that were the case, I should still have access to the planet's magic._  She shook her arms and legs, feeling for any trinket that could be cutting her off from the global reserve of power. Nothing.

Sight. She had to blink repeatedly at the sudden flash of light, but quickly her eyes adjusted enough to show her what little she could see of her surroundings. She was, as she had felt, standing on empty earth, but the rest of her environment was hidden behind a shifting curtain of thick white mist. Three tongues of vapor drifted towards her then, sliding up her tense arms and down her torso before condensing into a short, thin, purple night robe that hinted and teased and was more seductive than her previously bare skin had been. Examining the loosely draped fabric with a professional eye, Jen nodded with approval, though the display of magic when she could not feel any still disturbed her.

Smell. Rather than the clean scent she normally associated with fog, the air was flavored with tobacco. It was not strong enough for her to imagine that she was surrounded by smoke, but she could tell that whoever the individual was who had a penchant for smoking had been here very recently.

…or had yet to leave.

An icy breeze pushed against her from behind, raising goosebumps on her exposed thighs and shins and coating her in a cigar's aroma. A nasal whisper followed the wind, and despite the low volume, her bones rattled at the sound. "Welcome at last to my realm,  _fiyèt_."

Her heart skipped a beat in sheer terror. She knew to whom that accented voice belonged. She had just hoped she would never again encounter him in this life.

Gulping loudly, she slowly spun around and dropped to her knees, her head bent in submission. Her bone-dry mouth made her own words raspy as she answered, "Baron Samedi, Lord Death. How may your servant be of use to you?"

"Can I not simply wish to see how my investment has grown?" he asked with a low chuckle.

"Surely you have more important things than—"

"Not really." The crunch of ice sounded from in front of her, and she watched with not a little dread as frost raced past and below her, turning the ground as white as the fog in the air. Even without her sonar, she knew what had caused this phenomenon was pure dark magic. She could do the same if she wished, as she had in the Final Task of the Triwizard Tournament two months previously, but to do it this easily required truly awe-inspiring power.

That the Baron was so strong was not a surprise. He was, after all, one of the seven Dark Powers.

His footfalls grew louder as he came closer, and finally she saw a pair of bare feet stop just inside her field of vision. She risked glancing up just a little, not moving her head, and noticed dark slacks with ragged edges hanging around his legs. The biggest surprise was how  _thin_  he was, the legs of his trousers extraordinarily narrow and the black skin of his feet pulled taut enough that she could see all the bones and ligaments shifting underneath. He curled his long toes, popping the joints. "We have never had one of these little chats before, have we?"

"No, Baron, we have not," she squeaked.

He chuckled. "Are you truly so frightened of me, little girl?"

"I am," Jen admitted freely. "The last time you appeared before me, you…" She trailed off, unsure of how to phrase the truth without sounding as if she were accusing him of anything. That could only be bad for her continued health.

Before she could finish, he did it for her. "Wrenched open a path to your world so I might rip your mentor to shreds and scatter her remains about that quaint little home of hers?"

"…Yes."

"She should not have betrayed me. I granted her power and life beyond what she could ever have attained on her own, and she repaid me by attempting to change her allegiance? If she wished to shear her soul and bind herself to the living realm, she should have sought out Nyarlathotep from the beginning."

Jen grimaced. She had  _told_  Elsie that trying to make a soul jar for herself was a bad idea, but the old woman had refused to listen, claiming to know better than a mere thirteen-year-old. The Haitian's own books had made it clear that service to Death was an irrevocable agreement. If one offered herself to him and he accepted, that person belonged to him and him alone for the rest of her life, and possibly the life after that, as well.

Her greatest grudge with Elsie was that the old witch had neglected to tell her that  _before_  she bound herself to him.

"Come now, do you think that I hold  _you_  accountable for Elspeth Durand's mistake? Silly child. I judge you humans based on your  _own_  actions."

"And… and how have you judged me?"

He laughed quietly at her question. Lifting one foot to scratch the back of his other calf with his pointed toenails, the Baron said, "I brought you here tonight for three reasons. First, that I might wish you a…  _'happy birthday'_."

Strangely, that did nothing to alleviate her fear.

"Second, I come bearing a warning, the same I am giving all my servants." She shivered at that, for his voice had lost its former playfulness. "A new white witch has been contracted."

She closed her eyes and scowled at that. Whereas black mages gave themselves to the Dark Powers for access to the Higher Magics, white mages put themselves in the hands of the Light Powers. The two groups were always at odds with each other, mirroring the war the Powers had been waging since before the dawn of mankind. It had been a team of white wizards who chased Elsie out of Haiti as they tried to eradicate all knowledge and users of black magic from the country, and though she had never encountered a white mage herself, she knew that if – or, more likely,  _when_  – she did, she would need to quickly and quietly kill him or her before that person did the same to her. "Who is this new player?"

"I cannot tell you that." She nearly looked up in startlement but managed to keep her head down. One thing Elsie had made  _very_  clear was that if she ever found herself in the Baron's presence, she was not to look directly at him, but instead she needed to stay in a position of submission lest he take offense. "Her patron Power has yet to tell her about the wider world, about us and you, our servants. Until she knows, I, like the others, am bound by our Pact."

"But you  _do_  know."

"I know many things, and I shall share them with you if I desire you to know."

She nodded quickly at the chastisement. "I meant no insult, Baron Samedi."

He hummed at that for a moment. When she began to worry that she had made a worse mistake than she supposed, he continued, "My third reason for appearing before you is that I have a… small task for you to complete for me."

_That_  did not sound good.

"As you discovered today, that little vermin you call  _'Voldemort'_  made himself a  _soul jar_ ," the Baron spat, as if the words left a foul taste in his mouth. "What you do  _not_  know, however, is that the chalice you found is not his  _only_  one. In fact, he has six of those disgusting creations."

She blinked in surprise. Tearing one's soul in half had always sounded like a risky proposition to her, but she knew it was effective in anchoring a wizard to the world of the living should anything happen to him. Still, why would Voldemort ever need more than one, let alone  _six_?

"I want you to destroy them."

"What?!"

He guffawed at her outburst, causing her to flush with embarrassment. " _There_  is the spirit I saw in you; I wondered what happened to it. In all the years in which I have watched over you, never have you acted this meek."

"You… watched over me?" she asked hesitantly. She had hoped to avoid the Baron's notice following their previous encounter by using the black magic she gained from him sparingly, but the thought that he had always had an eye on her was… terrifying, quite frankly.

"Oh, yes." Though she could not see a grin, his mirth was obvious in his voice. "Who do you think pushed you out of the way of the fatal curse that abomination's servant boy threw at you in the graveyard? Who took away the pain of the torture curse you were hit with when you escaped his grasp? Who gave an old woman the strength to fight and kill a werewolf who planned to change you?" He laughed again, the sound this time far deeper and darker. "That was all  _me_. I have supported you ever since you were a tiny acolyte who needed help carving up her first victim."

She gasped in sudden realization. "I  _knew_  there was someone else there. Elsie never believed me, but I told her that another had taken control of my body."

"I did not  _control_  you; I simply… overshadowed your reluctance about what you had to do. You have taken a great deal of time and effort on my part, but I cannot say that I am disappointed in what you have become. Whether you will eventually turn me a profit or merely break even, though, has yet to be determined.

"Now, the trash's soul jars. Find them, destroy them, and then… Then I want you to kill him. Too long has he reveled in his supposed immortality. It is time he learned that no one can evade my grasp forever."

"Despite angering you so, you are not seeking him out yourself?" she asked tentatively.

"Oh, if only I could," the Baron muttered just loud enough for her to hear. In a louder voice, he continued, "I may appear to you freely because you belong to me, but that abomination is of Nyarlathotep's get. Should I go to him, despite him also being of black magic, our enemies will see it as a sign that our Pact has been suspended. It would also annoy that amorphous slime to no end, which is  _almost_  incentive enough for me to do it anyway."

_Clearly the alliance between the Dark Powers is one of convenience, not because they actually like each other_ , Jen noted to herself. Shoving the idle thought away, she asked, "Might I know more about these soul jars? Where they are, what they look like?"

"You wish for me to make your task  _that_  easy? No, no, that will not do at all." The Baron hummed in thought again. "Then again, I suppose I  _could_  give you a  _few_ hints. Yes, that would work just fine, though it will not be free. Nothing ever is." He cleared his throat and began to – incredibly –  _recite_  the clues she requested.

_"One you have found, the cup of gold.  
_ _The next you seek, a ring most old.  
_ _Crown of silver, locket of glass,  
_ _Serpent slithering in the grass.  
_ _The last all see but do not know,  
_ _In the hands of another foe."_

Jen slowly shook her head.  _Baron Samedi is a fan of_ _ **riddles**_ _? Now I have heard everything. At least I have experience working through them; clearly Ravenclaw really_ _ **was**_ _the best house for me_. One line in particular leapt out at her, and she said, "The snake, the one he had in the graveyard that I killed. That was a soul jar?"

"Indeed it was. I will credit you for that one, even though you did not know what you were facing at the time. The snake and the chalice are the easy ones; the others will not so happily leap into your arms. As for your reward…"

"Reward?" she repeated in surprise. Her books had mentioned that the Baron would sometimes play games with his avatars by offering them 'bounties' of a sort, but she had not realized he was placing her in that situation. Was this his way of testing her value as he implied he would?

"Oh, yes. You will stand against not just the vermin, but Nyarlathotep as well should he set aside his eternal indifference. That deserves some little compensation." He seemed to take pleasure in her sudden worry. Voldemort would be trouble enough, but he wanted her to take on one of the Dark Powers, too? If that were the case, she might as well slit her own throat; it would be faster and would yield the same overall result. "I doubt that will happen, however. Like a spoiled child playing with a new toy, he does not concern himself with the final state of his servants so long as they serve their ultimate purpose of amusing him.

"I do not bequeath boons as the Unseelie Queen does, but succeed in this task and I will grant you three rituals without sacrifice."

Her eyes widened at that offer. While it was not fast, Voodoo was  _powerful_ ; some of its rituals could even rewrite the laws of magic for short periods of time. Such power came at a cost, however: the stronger the result, the more humans who needed to die to recompense Death for the energy he would expend making the impossible become reality. The Baron was specifically offering three  _rituals_ , not three free  _lives_. That meant that even rituals that required hundreds of sacrifices would be open to her, black magic that had not been used in centuries or longer!

What could Voldemort have possibly done to anger Death himself to such an extent that he would willingly part with this much power?

"Do you know what  _'Voldemort'_  means?" the Baron asked suddenly. At the shaking of her head, he explained, "It is French for  _'Flight from Death'_. Every time he calls himself that name, he declares that he is faster than me, that I will never be able to catch him. If that insult were not enough, he broke his soul into enough fragments that putting him back together so I might teach him the error of his bold claims will be  _incredibly_  inconvenient. He has made me  _very_  angry."

_Oh shite. He can read my mind._  Belatedly she realized that without her magic running through her natural mental shield, she had no defenses. Her every thought was available to him. Taking a deep breath and trying not to have a heart attack at the sudden revelation, she voiced the question that had been growing since the Dark Power revealed that he had been watching her for practically her entire life. He clearly already knew it and had yet to crush her, so there was little additional harm in speaking it aloud. "And the prophecy concerning him and me? What role does it play in your decision?"

"I could send another servant if I wished – the fabric of Fate is not impossible for me to snarl and tangle as it is for you mortals, just complicated and obvious – but I will not deny that the prophecy made you far more tempting an option. That was part of the reason I took such interest in you from the beginning, after all. Claiming a Child of Destiny as one of my servants, one I could later use to destroy a thorn in my side? What a coup!" She started at that news. "Silly girl, did you never wonder why your mentor, a truly callous woman, would follow the cries of a sobbing child? That was  _my_  voice whispering in her ear, telling her that she would find something interesting at the other end."

"She only took me in because you told her to?" Jen clarified in a dead voice. She knew Elsie was anything but a good person, but despite the old witch's faults, she had at least thought the black witch had trained her because  _she_  had impressed the woman, not because Elsie had been ordered to by their patron Power.

"No," was the Baron's immediate answer. "I did not command her to teach you; I merely guided her to you when you were at your most vulnerable. The decision to take you in and make you her heir was entirely her own."

Both beings were silent for several moments, his last words hanging in the air. Finally, he continued, "I have given you all you need to know to complete your task. You have until… Oh, your seventeenth birthday should be sufficient." She choked at that, and he continued condescendingly, "Come now, that is a full two years away, and I have already given you the information you wanted. Surely this is not too much to ask."

_Two years to find four soul jars, destroy them, and then kill a Dark Lord? No, that's just a walk in the park!_ "Baron, that's impossible! Voldemort has many, many years on me, both in knowledge and experience. If that weren't enough, I'm stuck at school for much of the year, which limits my ability to search for the jars. Please, I need more time than this!"

"Are you not a vessel for my power,  _whelp_?" he demanded in a low voice, a powerful undercurrent of violence lurking just beneath his words. Around her, the frost layering the ground surged upwards in sharp spikes. "Have I not granted you the ability to use the sacrifice of your fellow man to violate the laws of your reality without consequence? Did I not offer you a prize many of your fellows would do literally  _anything_ for? Was it not  _I_  who made you into the witch you are today? Surely you would not begrudge doing me this one…  _little_ … thing."

Trembling at the danger she had put herself into, she swallowed harshly for several long seconds as she tried desperately to make her voice work again. "O-of course not, great Baron. Your servant begs mercy for her insolence. It will be as you command."

"Wonderful," he exclaimed, suddenly chipper again. He stepped closer and ran one hand through her hair. Jen whimpered as she felt her skull begin to freeze and crack. Unwanted tears of pain gathered in her eyes, only to turn to ice as soon as they rolled onto her cheeks. Ignoring her pain, Death continued, "You truly are an entertaining one, my pet. I wait with bated breath to see your continued adventures. Now, leave me."

Her body locked up, and she could only watch in dread as her skin turned blue and was covered in sheets of rime. She had time for a single, fearful twitch before she shattered into an infinite number of shards.

* * *

"Aaaaaaaaaaaah!"

Jen fell out of her bed and convulsed on the floor in utter agony. Every bone felt like it had been ground into dust; her internal organs had been stabbed by hundreds, thousands of knives; her muscles were being peeled away layer by layer. She had suffered Voldemort's Cruciatus Curse, and she would gladly take that for hours on end than the pain she was currently experiencing.

After minutes that felt like days, the pain faded away, and she lay still panting for several blissful moments, simply reveling in the absence of sensation. Eventually she had to get up, and she noted with shock that her sonar was fractured and weakened to the point that she could only feel small, isolated portions of her room, and faintly at that. A ringing noise prompted her to probe at her left ear, and her finger came away wet, though in the darkness she was unable to see exactly what the fluid was.

_That can't be good_. She forced herself to stand, leaning against the wall briefly for support until she had to jerk her hand back from the ice coating the surface.  _Dark magic used for a silencing charm, I'd bet my life on it. At least that explains why no one heard me. I could swear I was screaming loud enough to wake the dead_. One stumbling step at a time, her sonar splintering and reforming with each footfall, she made her way to door leading to her attached bathroom, running into the doorframe in the process. Her fumbling hand finally found the knob to light the room's lamps.

"By the Baron," she breathed, staring at her dreadful reflection in the mirror. Her face was as pale as a ghost. Blood leaked from her nose, her ears; there were even crimson tear tracks running from bloodshot eyes. "All that… from a single touch?" The girl shivered. She had known that Baron Samedi was tremendously strong, but for a few seconds of contact with him to hurt her as much as it did?

A memory of a roomful of mutilated remains rotting at impossible speed forced its way to the front of her mind. The Baron's magic was not of the living world, so she had never been able to determine exactly what he had done when he destroyed Elsie. Had it been as simple as this, just grabbing the old woman until his innate power literally tore her apart?

_And he called me_ 'entertaining' _, too, just like he did to her. Was he speaking honestly when he said her mistakes would not affect me, or did he set me up to fight Voldemort just so he could watch me fall?_  His insistence that she defeat the Dark Lord before she came of age was disconcerting to say the least.

Worse, there was nothing she could do about it.

"What have I gotten myself into?" she wondered, bracing her elbows against the sink and resting her head in her hands. The Baron had made it clear that this task was not one she could refuse, and she cursed the fact that was no such thing as retirement from service to one of the Dark Powers. Once a witch had accepted patronage, she was her master's until the moment of her death. For necromancers and Voodooists, it was even worse should they wish to be free: Death was the Gatekeeper of the Afterlife, and all who wished to enter the land of the dead had to first pass through his realm. So long as they were there, he was fully capable of whisking them away off their path and enslave them as his cruel entertainment until he finally grew bored enough to let them go again.

Considering that some sources claimed the Powers had been at war for hundreds of thousands of years, and must have existed before then, she had no doubts that the Baron was a very patient being.

_I love the power the Black Arts give me, but if I had known the price I would have to pay, I would have thought Elsie's offer over a_ _ **lot**_ _longer before I made my dagger_. Her rage at the current situation, at the Baron's specific demands, and at her own past foolishness boiled over, and she slammed her fist into the mirror. The glass shattered, and twelve purple eyes glared back at her. "You snake-faced son of a bitch. This is all  _your_  fault."

* * *

**This is the first time I've written from James's perspective, and I have to admit that he surprised me. I was not prepared for just how much** _**hate** _ **he has towards Slytherins hidden inside. Unfortunately, I don't think this would be an uncommon view among Hogwarts-schooled adults; when they spend practically their entire adolescence being told that one quarter of their peers are evil and deserve their spite, how likely are they to maintain that view throughout the rest of their lives?**

**The first time I read** _**The Tale of the Three Brothers** _ **, I noticed something odd and was later surprised that seemingly no one in the fandom had pointed it out. Death became mad at the brothers for** _**safely crossing a river** _ **and immediately gave two of them "gifts" that were clearly meant to kill them; he sought revenge for an extremely minor slight (if their actions could even be considered a slight). Imagine my shock, then, when so many "Master of Death" stories (more on** _**that** _ **in a much later chapter!) portrayed him as a helpful entity. In Harry Potter canon, Death is not gentle. Death is not kind. No, Death is** _**actively malevolent** _ **.**

**Has anyone now figured out why Jen couldn't sense the Elder Wand or Luna's Holda pendant? I'll give you a hint: as with Fawkes's flames and song, Jen's sonar is perfectly capable of feeling normal white magic.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	7. Unannounced Visits

**EVERYONE:**   _NO_ , Luna is not the white witch the Baron was telling Jen about! I'm getting worried that so many of you wanted to chase that imaginary squirrel; do you really think I'd be  _that_  cruel to my favorite HP character? Her familial connection to Holda will play a minor part in year 6, but she is not going to be in danger of being murdered in her bed for being on the opposite side of the Powers' war.

**Looking at the poll for which story I should work on next, there are several frontrunners, but none of them has a clear majority. Therefore, I need everyone to go and vote again so I can narrow it down from four to one. Thank you in advance.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did Dumbledore try to get a member of the Order to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts in fifth year so he could avoid the Ministry appointing someone to the post? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 7  
** **Unannounced Visits**

A soft pop split the silent night air, and with a twirl a dark-haired young woman appeared from thin air in the middle of the street. Jen pushed her curls out her face and smiled softly at the grimy facades that her eyes revealed. She had never seen these buildings before, but she knew them extremely well. Intimately, one could say.

 _Especially_  the old building directly in front of her. 145 Delilah Street.

Taking a deep breath of the salty sea air, she strode to the dingy door with a confidence that would normally seem out of place for a solitary girl in the bad part of town. She, however, not only had magic, which no one else in the city had, but no one with any sense who lived in this section of Avryporth for longer than a year would be foolish enough to cross her. She ran a finger under the faded script on the wood and opened the door.

"Welcome to…" a young blonde, maybe seven years old, just inside began, only to give her senior a double-take. "I'm sorry, miss, but you're not supposed to be here. This is private property—"

"Don't even waste your time, sweetie," Jen rejoined with a grin. "You're new, aren't you?"

The girl blinked rapidly at being blown off like this. "What?"

"There's a reason you don't have bouncers. No one who doesn't want to be here can come through that door." Starting down the hall, she added, "Not to mention, I don't recognize you."

"Wait!" A bell started ringing. "You're not allowed back there!"

She stopped in her tracks and looked over her shoulder with a glare that caused the girl to take a couple of steps back and shiver in her short, shimmery dress. "Word of wisdom, kiddo.  _Never_  tell me I can't go anywhere I damn well please in this place."

The door at the other end of the corridor creaked open, and a nine-year-old redhead slipped out. "What's going… on…" The girl shook her head a few times and whispered, "Mama?"

Jen shot her a grin. "Why, Paula, you look like you've just seen a ghost."

"Mama Jen!" The girl sprinted towards her with a bright giggle and practically threw herself into Jen's arms. "You came back!"

She rolled her eyes even as she spun the glomping girl around in a quick circle. "All I did was move out and go to school. It's not like I dropped off the face of the earth or something."

"…No one else ever comes back."

 _Well, it helps that I can teleport wherever and whenever I want_. Despite herself, she gave her former coworker another tight hug before letting Paula reluctantly back out of the embrace. "No one else kept in touch, either, did they? How is everybody?"

"We're good for the most part. It's been…  _interesting_  to see Dicky try to figure out how to do your job, but Tommy and Crystal have gotten  _real_  good at shoplifting, so we haven't had to go without too much."

"Doesn't that idiot remember that there was a  _reason_ he kept me around as the manager?" Jen asked rhetorically. "Let me go straighten him out. He here right now?"

"Yep. Oh, just wait till I tell everyone! They're going to love hearing you're back," Paula said with a gleeful grin that widened when she looked closer at Jen's face. "You got your eyes fixed?!"

"That I did," she answered with a laugh. "Look good, don't they?" Not waiting for a response, she walked over to the open door and just took in the normal noise of Candyland Club.

Her eyelids drooped a bit as she continued deeper inside, letting her memory and her ears guide her around the skimpily dressed waitresses and the occasional startled adult. For all the wonder of being nobility and the excitement of Hogwarts, she had missed this place. This was where she had spent most of her childhood; this had been her workplace and her home, and all the dancers and servers and prostitutes were like her children.

"I can't believe it! Is that little Jen I see walking about all grown up?"

That seemed to be the signal for everyone to shift their attention from the girls cavorting on the stage to her, and the witch was quickly mobbed. Martin Samuelson, Yvonne Wallace, Bruce Arkwright, Joseph Grissom… all former clients and sexual partners of hers. She was inundated with warm greetings, warmer hugs, and not a few gropes of her posterior despite being too old for the pedophiles who patronized the club.

Finally the last of her old contacts had clapped her gently on the shoulder, and she could stagger to the bar.  _If I have to deal with_ _ **that**_ _every time I disappear from this place for a year, I need to either come back more often or stay away longer._  A shot glass full of spiced rum found its way into her hand, and she glanced up at the dark-skinned boy smiling at her. "Drew, I could kiss you right now."

"Sorry, Mama, but I'm on the clock," he replied with a cheery grin. "Pretty eyes, by the way. Are you back for good, or just a visit?"

"Visit. I forgot something in the office that I need, and I figured I'd top off the wards while I'm here." She frowned as she recalled the greeter sounding an alarm, something that had not been present when she left. "Have you been having trouble with people who aren't supposed to be here finding their way inside?"

Not looking up from the glass he was drying, Drew nodded. "It hasn't been many, maybe five? First one was two weeks ago. They all acted confused once they got inside, but it scared Rick something fierce. He was sure the bobbies were gonna barge in and arrest everyone."

 _Give it long enough, and that would have been a distinct possibility_. She gulped the alcohol down and slammed the glass back on the bar's counter. "Well, we can't have  _that_ , now can we? Don't worry about a thing; I'll get it all straightened out."

"We always could count on you to get things done around here, Mama. Rick's back in your office if you want to talk to him about it."

Nodding at the news and ruffling his hair, much to his verbal complaint – though his eyes sparkled with happiness at the gesture – she drifted behind the bar and through a swinging door marked  _'Employees Only'_. Her old office, as well as the storeroom and the kitchens, were back this way, well away from anywhere their clients had any reason to wander. The first door had  _'Manager'_  scrawled on the surface, and without knocking she forced it open.

"I thought I told you all to keep out!"

She kicked a filled cardboard box out of the way of the door so she could slip inside and riffled through the top drawer of the room's filing cabinet. "Sorry, I must have missed that memo."

The man started at her voice, and through her sonar she could feel him whip his head up to look at her. "No. Way. Jen?"

"You don't sound at all pleased to have me back, Richard," she drawled, slamming the drawer shut and moving to the next. "I heard you've been having some trouble with the accounts?"

"Speak of the devil and she will appear," the owner of the club murmured to himself. "There's no way you could have kept all this straight without using that mumbo jumbo of yours."

"Magic helped, but mostly it was being organized, something you most definitely are  _not_. Well, that and I actually knew what I was doing." Flicking her wrist to roll the chair holding her old boss out of the way, she pulled open the drawers of the desk to peer underneath the papers piled inside.

"And then you left."

She stood up and stared the man in the eyes. Today was the first time she had ever actually seen Richard Hutchins, and he was even less impressive than she had imagined. She knew that he was a short man, but she was not expecting the drab, mousey brown hair or the bland blue eyes. All in all, he was not someone any random person walking down the street would spare a second glance, which she supposed was a good trait for the owner of the largest child brothel in Wales to possess.

Finally nodding at his words, she agreed, "Yes, I left. I also taught both Drew and Paula how to run the front without supervision, and I made sure I spent extra time with him so he could take over as manager should anything happen to me. That you decided to take on the responsibilities yourself is your problem."

"You mean I didn't have to do any of this?" he spluttered. "Why didn't you  _tell_  me you had it all taken care of?"

"Richard, you left this place in my hands five years ago and returned to give it a cursory examination  _maybe_ once every few months. That I already had plans in place in case I couldn't do it anymore wasn't something I felt you needed to know. Why do you think I was so open to leaving as soon as the opportunity presented itself?" Did Richard really think she would have moved out of the club the day after Sirius found her here if she  _weren't_  prepared?

He shrugged. "I thought you just wanted rid of this place, no matter who it would affect."

"Like I'd abandon my kids?  _Please_. We both know I care more about the people here than you do." He nodded absently at that, and she let out a short laugh when she finally found the thin book she had been looking for. " _There_  it is. I knew I left it somewhere around here."

"What is it?" he asked, leaning over to examine the dull leather cover and scowling when he could find no title.

Shrinking the book and slipping it into the pocket of her conjured cut-offs, she answered, "Nothing much, just a collection of essays on the theoretical composition and arithmantic analysis of the human soul."

"…Do I even want to know why you need that?"

"Probably not." She smiled wickedly. "In fact, I can assure you that you very much do  _not_  want to know. It's… not exactly  _pleasant_."

"Right…"

Jen smirked at his worried tone and picked her way through the paper-covered floor to the closet at the back of the room. Opening the door, she pulled a smooth, round granite stone down from where its cord hung on a nail in the doorframe. "If you decide to spend more of your time here even though you now know you don't need to manage the finances, make sure you keep an eye on this."

"What is it?" He rolled the chair closer to get a better look at it.

"This little pretty is the anchor for the wards. It's what keeps the bobbies from finding us, and it's also supposed to keep anyone who doesn't know what this place is from accidentally entering." She let her magic flow from her hands into the runes carved on the stone's surface, and the crude symbols blazed with sudden white light.  _I really need to make a replacement for this thing next summer. Futhark_ _ **works**_ _for this, but Cissy said Ancient Runes will cover Egyptian hieroglyphs this year, and those are_ _ **so**_ _much better for warding_.

Several minutes passed in silence as she pushed her energy into the small rock, and finally she cut the flow and watched the shining light change to a soft glow. "That should keep till next summer. The wards are fairly weak – just misdirection and avoidance, really, not like they can throw anybody out – so it doesn't take a lot of power to maintain them, but you should probably check the stone every month or so just to be on the safe side. If the light in the runes starts to fade, it means I need to recharge them or Candyland will be defenseless."

"Let's not let that happen," he said with a shudder. "How would I get in touch with you if that happens?"

"All the kids know my post box address; just have one of them send me a letter, and I should get it in a couple of days. Don't wait too long to get me, or its reserve might go completely dry before I have a chance to come by."

He scowled. "Isn't there a phone wherever you spend your time?"

"I go to a  _boarding school_  in a  _renovated castle_. No, they don't have phones for the students to use, and even if they did, a grown man wanting to talk to a teenage girl would raise all sorts of red flags, don't you think?" she asked in a dry voice.

"Fine," Richard harrumphed before waving a hand over the ledgers. "Can you finish the rest of this while you're here?"

She laughed at him. "Not a chance. I quit, and that means I'm not doing any more paperwork. I'm going to watch a few of the dancers, then I'm headed out. Besides, it's already two, and I have somewhere to be tomorrow morning."

"What, a brunch party with that rich godfather of yours?"

"If only it were that simple." She crossed the room and grabbed hold of the door handle. "No, I need to visit someone in jail."

* * *

The waves crashed against the shores of Azkaban Island, filling the air with noise, as Narcissa looked back at her niece. "You're  _sure_  you want to do this?"

"For the thirtieth time,  _yes_ ," Jen answered sharply. She tugged the hood of her black cloak forwards to better protect her face from the surf's spray before she continued, "This will be the last time I can do it with even a modicum of anonymity. As soon as the news gets out…"

"True." A grimace finding its way onto her face as she again pondered how the family was going to weather  _that_  particular storm, she grabbed her niece's hand to prevent Jen from slipping on the wet rock that made up the short path from the weather-beaten pier to the gates of the prison proper. "I just hope this turns out well."

"Why do you say that?"

"Jen, I could barely predict what my sister would do  _before_  she was arrested. Azkaban has a way of wearing away its inhabitants' sanities, and Bella didn't exactly have much to spare. There's no way to know how she'll react to finding out about you."

" _Great_ ," remarked the younger witch, sarcasm dripping from the word. "So, are we going to tell her the truth or the same lie we're telling everyone else?"

 _That is a_ _ **very**_ _good question_ , Narcissa acknowledged to herself. After some consideration, she answered, "I think we better give her the lie, just to make sure everything is consistent. Not to mention, Bella was one of the more…  _rabid_  of the Dark Lord's followers when it came to blood purity. Finding out that we are 'defiling' our House with a born halfblood, even though you now qualify as a Pureblood, would set her off. Probably," she added, mostly to herself.

"Really?" Jen hurried ahead and spun around, walking backwards are easily as she had forwards and peering at the elder witch from under her hood. "I would have thought she'd be happy that her blood was used to turn a halfblood into a 'proper witch'."

"If she wanted halfbloods to be purified somehow, you'd be right, but she didn't. She was ranting once and told me that she felt any Pureblood witch who  _'rutted like an animal with Mudblood filth'_  should have her womb ripped out of her body and her  _'unnatural spawn'_  strangled to death in front of her."

"That's rather graphic."

"You can say that again," she muttered, noticing that Jen's expression had not changed the slightest bit during that description and inwardly nodding in approval. That description had left her feeling faint when she first heard it, but she had kept that off her face as she had been taught; it was good that Jen could already do the same. No matter how disgusting or abhorrent the situation one had to face, a Black should never reveal anything except what she wanted to reveal.

"So if we told her the truth, she'd try to kill me?" Jen prompted after several moments of quiet.

"Maybe?" Narcissa shrugged helplessly. "There's no way to know. As I said, after almost fourteen years here, she's beyond mad."

Jen hummed slightly at that and allowed the woman to pass her. The narrow black gates towering above the pair opened at their approach, and she strode into the imposing edifice with more confidence than she felt. She made her way to a small window just inside and announced, "Narcissa Malfoy to visit Bellatrix Lestrange."

"Uh-huh," the burly guard beyond the bars grunted before writing the names on a sheet of parchment. "An' 'oo you got with you?"

"What do you mean? It's just me," she said sweetly as she slipped her fingers between the bars and dropped five galleons onto the form.

"You sure? I could swear I see sommat else there." Five more golden coins fell into his grasp. "Then again, maybe it's just me eyes." He pulled a cord, and the dark metal grate to her left swung inwards. "Up the stairs, a guard'll be waiting for you at the top."

Smiling slightly at the blatant corruption that made this task far easier than it could otherwise have been, she signaled the girl to go ahead of her with a slight nudge. The two walked up the narrow stairwell, and Jen asked out of the blue, "It wasn't the Ministry that built Azkaban, was it?"

"What?"

"The magic, it's… strange." The younger witch patted the outer wall thoughtfully. "Maybe it's all the iron around us, but the magic feels almost  _sharp_ , like we're surrounded by a forest of swords. And I thought the Ministry despised dark magic, but the air's full of it."

Narcissa blinked at the strange description before pushing her surprise away. The family knew that Jen was exquisitely sensitive to magic – she said it was how she knew where she was going before her sight had been restored – but she had never explained her unique talent in any real detail. "No, it wasn't. On one of my visits here, I had an unusually talkative guard lead me to Bella's cell, and he said that the Ministry found it in the early seventeenth century. They supposedly stripped it of anything valuable and then converted it from an ancient fortress to the prison it is today."

"Did he mention who actually built it?" the girl pressed.

"No, I don't believe he did."

Ignoring Jen's muttering of  _'Unfortunate'_ , she pushed open the door at the top of the stairs. The guard inside the next hallway looked up from his copy of the  _Daily Prophet_  and irritably threw it onto the table. "You're the ones who came to see Lestrange, right?"

"That is correct."

"Course you are," he muttered. In a flat, disinterested voice, he continued, "Anyone who wants to speak with one of the prisoners must obey the following rules to the letter. Prisoners are not allowed to receive anything from visitors. Prisoners are not permitted conjugal visitation. No matter what crime the prisoner has committed, you are not allowed to jinx, hex, curse, or otherwise cast magic on them. You may not leave the side of your accompanying guard, and he is not responsible for any harm that may befall you should you do so. Do not antagonize the Dementors. Do not antagonize the guards. Violating any of these rules will see you subjected to a fine ranging from forty to a thousand galleons or staying in Azkaban yourself for a period not to exceed six months. Do you understand the rules as I have explained them?"

Narcissa barely kept her eyes from rolling. She had heard this speech many,  _many_  times over the years. "Yes, we understand."

"Good. We're headed to the top floor, which is where most of the Dementors make their nests. You get too far away from me, and I can't promise you'll make it back down here." Picking up a heavy gold amulet off the table, he draped it around his neck and unhung a large glass pot full of bluebell flames from a hook on the wall. The bored guard then opened a door behind him that revealed yet another flight of stairs. They ascended to the next floor, where they had to walk down a hallway full of cells – each filled with cold, miserable people in ragged clothes – to reach the next staircase. On and on they went, each set of steps only going far enough to lead to the next level. Finally, after the twelfth such stairwell, the wizard gave the door a solid kick to dislodge the frost rimming it and shoved the door open.

The Dementor lurking just beyond seemed to perk up slightly before retreating a few feet. "Bloody monster," the guard said and turned back to them. "Stick close. These things are always hungry, and they're not too picky about exactly who they eat." They continued forwards, the soul-devouring fiend taking to the air and hovering above them before eventually settling back onto the ground and following just a few feet behind the trio.

Shivering from both the physical cold and the proximity of the creature, Narcissa edged closer to the pot of flames. Jen, on the other hand, chose to prove that Ravenclaw was indeed the right house for her and asked, "If the Dementors don't care who they feed on, what is keeping them from attacking us?"

"This thing," the man said, turning around and tapping the gaudy necklace. "It keeps them away from me. That's why I said to stay close by. If you wander off, you'll leave its range and get eaten." He guided them down the hall and around the corner to a cell in the far wall of the triangular prison. "Prisoner 13-1039, Bellatrix Lestrange. You have ten minutes."

"Thank you. May I cast a silencing charm?" Narcissa asked.

"No. All conversations have to be able to be overheard by the escorting guard."

"This pertains to House business."

" _All_  conversations have to be able to be overheard," the wizard repeated.

She huffed, then felt a faint contact on her Occlumency shields, as if ghostly fingers were tickling her forehead. Turning her eyes to meet her niece's and pushing a weak Legilimency probe into the girl's mind, she heard,  _"I'll take care of it. He won't tell anyone a thing about what we say."_

Nodding slightly, she looked away and at the wooden door concealing her sister. She was not entirely sure what Jen was planning, though she had the sneaking suspicion that it involved memory charms on the way back down the stairs. Most of the time the younger witch's talent for wandless magic did not concern her overmuch, but the idea that Jen could rewrite someone's memory on the fly without anyone noticing was disconcerting.  _Thank Merlin she's on_ _ **our**_ _side_.

Peering through the small window, she softly called, "Bella? Are you awake?"

"' _Dreams, dreams away are flying, sleep to me ev'r denying'_. Elphaba Selwyn,  _A Thousand Lonely Nights_." A mass of grimy robes and unruly hair rustled and shifted, unfolding into the angular limbs of the eldest Black Sister. Narcissa barely withheld a wince; Bellatrix's body was gaunt, her cheekbones sharp like knives and her eyes sunken so deep that they could not be seen from this distance. Every time she came to Azkaban, her sister looked worse and worse. "I'm always awake, Cissy dear."

"You really should pay more attention to your health."

"Ha!" The dark witch cackled at the half-joking observation before a fit of wet, hacking coughs racked her body. Wiping her mouth on her grey sleeve, she shot Narcissa a yellowed grin. "I keep telling the guards I need a spa day, but they won't let me out. Maybe you can use your pretty words to make them change their minds."

The piebald woman grinned weakly; the quote from Bella's favorite singer and the mocking retort both indicated that they had managed to catch her on one of her better days. "I'll try, but that's not why I'm here. There's—"

"The Mark!" Bellatrix interrupted. Scurrying to the door, the woman grabbed her left sleeve and pulled it up to her elbow, exposing the inky Dark Mark branded onto her emaciated forearm. "Do you see, Cissy? It's  _black_. That means the Master has returned!"

"It looks normal to me," she lied.

"No no no. It's black. Black.  _Black_. Lucius's should look the same. Has he spoken with the Master? Has he begged forgiveness for abandoning Him when He needed us most?"

Narcissa glanced worriedly over her shoulder at the guard. The wizard was slumped against the wall, his eyes clouded over and focused on nothing, and Jen shot her a smirk before whispering, "Told you I'd take care of it."

"I know nothing about the Dark Lord's activities," she said to Bellatrix. "My marriage with Lucius has been damaged beyond repair. We are no longer together."

"That's too bad," the older woman remarked quietly. After a moment, her starved face brightened. "Ooh, but now you have an  _opportunity_. You didn't take the Master's Mark last time, but now if you do, you can pull Lucius's feet out from under him and take his place as the His left hand." Bellatrix clapped her hands excitedly. "Just think, with us as His lieutenants, He would surely succeed in His goals this time!"

Unsure of exactly how to respond to that, Narcissa instead motioned for Jen to approach. "Oh, I was going to mention it before we got on that tangent, but I brought someone who desperately wanted to see you, and I remember how much you worried about her when you mentioned her to me so many years ago."

"I… What?" Jen, hood now down, took her place in front of the small window, but Narcissa could still hear Bellatrix mutter, "Wow, you look nothing like Lucius."

Jen laughed the comment away. "I would be extremely surprised if I  _did_  look like Uncle Lucius."

"Uncle? Oh. You must be  _Andromeda's_  brat, then." The younger witch drew her head back sharply to keep the bony hands that forced their way through the bars from wrapping around her throat. "Aw, come back. Your auntie Bellatrix just wants to give you a  _great big hug_."

"Bella!"

Seeming unperturbed by the attack, Jen glanced at Narcissa and cocked her head. "I wondered why Aunt Andi had nothing good to say about her, but now it all makes perfect sense if  _this_  is how she would have treated Dora."

Bellatrix's hands slipped back into the cell, and the confused witch asked, " _Uncle_  Lucius and  _Aunt_  Andi? Who are you, girl?"

"Don't you recognize her, Bella?" Narcissa asked. She did feel bad about lying to her sister, but this was necessary.  _If she were sane, she'd understand why we're doing this_ , she told herself once more. "This is  _Jennifer_. Your daughter."

"My… daughter? What are you talking about, Cissy? I don't have a kid."

She laughed uncomfortably. "Of course you do.  _You're_ the one who told me about her; you said you hid her away and told me where I could find her. Don't you remember? It was almost ten years ago, and you were worried that she would never learn who she was. You said I could find her in—"

"No, no, no, no, no. I don't have a daughter. I don't have any children. It's impossible!"

"Bella, it's true." She pulled Jen to the door again so Bella could see her face. "I mean,  _look_  at her, for Merlin's sake. She looks just like you did when you were fifteen. Who  _else_  could her mother be?"

"It can't be. No, Rodolphus, I don't know what she's talking about! I  _told_  you I didn't want any brats to take care of! Well, that's why I didn't make an issue of you seeing Goyle's wife behind my back, wasn't it?!"

A quick peek inside showed Narcissa that Bellatrix's attention was no longer focused on them; instead, she was arguing with the empty air to the left of the door and getting more and more upset. "It looks like this is as good a reception as we will receive, Jen. Come al—  _Ah_!"

She chastised herself immediately for the brief shriek that had slipped through her control, but what else could she have done when Bellatrix rushed the door with those crazed eyes? The incarcerated witch ignored her, however, and instead addressed the youngest of the three Blacks. "You! Daughter!"

"Yes,  _Mother_?" Jen purred in response, a dark grin decorating her lips.

"If you really  _are_  my daughter, I have a task for you, one only you can complete." Bellatrix pressed her left forearm against the bars so Jen could better see the Dark Mark. "Go to your uncle and have him take you before the Dark Lord. I cannot return to His side, but  _you_  can. Take my place beside Him, take His Mark and serve Him faithfully. Let Him know that I am trapped here but ache to be in His presence once more. Remind Him that some of us are still loyal to Him, loyal in ways no one else is."

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Mother. Our Head of House has forbidden us to have any contact with your master. Sirius even made him an outright enemy of the House," the girl replied.

"That Muggle-loving blood traitor?! No! The House of Black cannot be led by him! You're lying!" Bellatrix glared at Jen with wide eyes, teeth bared in a vicious snarl as she screeched, "This is all one of your plots, isn't it, Narcissa?! You want to take my place at the Master's side! You want to control Him for your bastard husband! I won't allow it! I'll kill you! I'll kill you all!" The insane witch ran away from the door and began scrabbling at the back wall of her cell. "Don't listen to her, Master! It's all a trick! Only I'm loyal, always loyal! Always Yours!"

Jen peeked into the tiny stone room again. "Huh. We didn't push her off the cliff of sanity so much as  _drop kicked_  her off it."

"That we did."

The underage witch looked over at her soft tone. "Auntie? What's wrong?"

"When we were younger, Bella always knew when Andi or I did something we weren't supposed to, and she could tell when we were lying almost before we opened our mouths. But now?" Narcissa waved her hands weakly at the filthy wooden door. "Now she can't even tell what's real and what isn't. And I put her in this state.  _I_  hurt my sister like this."

Futilely trying to come up with something to say to that, Jen opened her mouth several times before shaking her head and stepping closer to wrap her arms around the elder witch. "I'm sorry that we had to do this, that I asked you to do it. Was there something else we could have done instead?"

"We shouldn't have done it at all. I thought she would listen, or at least be able to recognize how similar you two look." Her gut wrenched painfully as she admitted, "And I guess it just seemed wrong to hide it from her any longer. Even if you're adopted, she at least deserved to see you, even if only once. Now I just wish we hadn't come here."

"We don't have to stay any longer if you want to leave." At her nod, Jen pulled away and snapped her fingers. The guard staggered to his feet and shook his head rapidly. "Sir? I'm sorry to wake you, but we're ready to go."

"Oh! Right, yes. Follow me." He slung the strap of the flame-pot over his shoulder and started back down the hall, clearing his throat nervously once they were again in the stairwell. "Er, ladies? Any chance you can maybe keep this just between the three of us? The warden won't be happy with me if he finds out I was sleeping on the job, but it's just… The hours here are murder, and with the Dementors flying around all the time, it's not like we can really get any rest on our off hours, and—"

"It's fine," Narcissa cut in. "What I needed to discuss with her was personal, anyway, so it works out for the best for all of us. You have no need to fear us saying anything."

"Thank you, ma'am. That takes a load off my mind."

She nodded and leaned closer to her niece to whisper, "Jen, this is the first time I've said it, but some of the things you can do are downright eerie."

"I know," the girl answered cheerfully as she pulled her hood back up. "I just hope her being my mother doesn't put me at a higher risk of going nuts myself when I get older."

"Merlin, I hope not, too." She shuddered.  _Her power with Bella's sadism and insanity? That's a recipe for disaster_.

* * *

James took a fortifying breath before he scooped up a handful of Floo powder and flung the silvery dust into the hearth. Kneeling, he stuck his head into the emerald flames. "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Headmaster's Office!"

Innumerable and unique fireplace screens, each representing a home connected to the national Floo Network, whirled about his field of vision for several long seconds before the one he was waiting for slid open to show him the office in question. "Ah, James, this is a pleasant surprise," Dumbledore said as he set his quill down on the desk. "Has something come up?"

He grimaced. "Yes, Professor, you could say that. Do you mind if I come through?"

"Not at all, my boy."

Pulling his head back, he stepped through the fire as if it were a doorway and into the cluttered room. "Sorry for barging in on you like this, sir, but, er… I kind of need your help."

"Oh?" the elderly wizard asked, waving his wand and clearing scrolls of parchment out of the seat in front of his desk. "What kind of help do you mean?"

"Well, with our house gone, we're having to stay with Augusta, and while I appreciate her generosity," he added hastily, "we Potters have never exactly been good at accepting charity. It turns out I'm no different in that respect. Not to mention, Lily and I would like to go ahead and buy a new house so we can feel like we have a real  _home_  again, because as nice as the Longbottoms' guest rooms are, they aren't ours."

Dumbledore nodded patiently. "A fine sentiment, James. You feel that being in a home of your own will be one step closer to normality, yes?"

"Yes, that's it exactly," he agreed. "But, well, this is where things become a little embarrassing…"

"You have nothing to fear, my boy. I'm not here to judge you."

"We have money in our vault, enough to mostly refurbish a house, but it's not enough to do that  _and_ buy one. We talked to one of the Gringotts loan officers, and they're willing to lend us the money, but the interest rate is absurd. 35 percent annually over a forty year period! I mean, that's highway robbery right there!" James shook his head. "Unfortunately, the goblins are the only ones willing to loan us the money at all. The other lenders we asked turned us down as soon as they heard that neither Lily or I currently have a job and that we don't have any other property we can put up as collateral." He laughed bitterly. "They said we were too big a risk for them to take on. Just because we need a little money to help us get back on our feet!"

"That is sad to hear, truly it is, but I'm not sure how I can help you." Dumbledore gave him a weak smile. "It isn't as if I'm rolling in gold myself. My salaries as Chief Warlock and representative to the ICW are more a symbolic gesture than anything; it is generally expected that someone in those positions would be nobility and therefore have sufficient money to lean on already. My finances are little better than those of my staff."

"Oh, I wasn't asking  _you_  for a loan," James said, backtracking as fast as possible. He knew that Dumbledore belonged to a common House, but he never thought that the Leader of the Light would have money troubles like an ordinary wizard! "But I know you know people. Is there any chance you could put us in touch with someone who  _would_  be willing to hear us out?"

"I honestly don't know. I can ask around, certainly, but you know that the topic of gold turns even the kindest people into knut-pinching misers." The two men sat in silence before Dumbledore murmured to himself, "Although…"

"What is it?"

The elderly wizard's reply was slow and uncertain. "This wouldn't be an  _immediate_  solution to your problem, necessarily, but it could help. Do you remember the issue we had with professors for the Defense Against the Dark Arts class when you were a student here?"

He laughed. "Oh, Merlin, yes. We never had the same one two years in a row. Danny's said that you still have that problem."

"Yes, we do, but things are even worse now. So many people know about the… string of misfortune those professors have that it's become hard to find anyone willing to take the post." With a huff that caused his long beard to shake, Dumbledore flicked a sheet of parchment irritably. "Unfortunately, the Ministry has decided in their  _infinite_  wisdom that it's time they step in and muck everything up further. They've given me an ultimatum: unless I can procure a professor by the twentieth, they will appoint someone for me."

"What? Why?"

Dumbledore frowned. "Ostensibly it's so the students can be assured a professor who knows what he's doing rather than risk someone found at the last minute who can't teach the students anything – and as Gilderoy Lockhart proved, that  _is_  a valid concern – but I doubt it's the  _real_  reason. Cornelius has not forgotten the discussion he and I had earlier this summer, and I fear he's decided that he needs to keep a closer eye on me. He will probably choose one of his toadies if he gets his way on this."

"That would be bad for the students, sure, but I'm not sure what you want  _me_  to do about it." The House of Potter was a Noble House, and they had a seat on the Wizengamot, but that didn't mean he could casually tell the Minister what to do. Even if he decided to lower himself to Malfoys' level, something no self-respecting wizard would do, he didn't pockets deep enough for bribery.

"Don't you see, James?" Dumbledore said, breaking him from his thoughts. "I need someone to fill the position for this year, and you said the lenders wouldn't help you because you don't have a source of income. If you take on the Defense post, both our problems will be solved!"

He shook his head immediately. "You forget that I know what happens to the people who take the job. There's what, a thirty percent mortality rate? If I did that, I wouldn't have to worry about the curse killing me; Lily would do it herself."

"There has yet to be a  _single_  death for anyone who teaches the class after signing a contract stating that it would be their sole year here." The old wizard spread his hands. "I'm not asking for an answer right now, but won't you at least  _consider_  it? You and Lily would both have access to the staff quarters provided so you could spend longer looking for a house and not imposing further on Augusta's generosity, you would be closer to Danny in this dark time,  _and_ …" Dumbledore shot him a knowing smile. "Let's not forget that your  _daughter_  would be in your class, too. An entire year of opportunities to speak with her without anyone dragging her away, and then there's the fact that she's a Ravenclaw. If it's in pursuit of knowledge, she may very well seek you out on her own accord."

 _That_ _ **is**_ _a tempting offer. It would solve all our immediate problems,_ _ **and**_ _get me closer to Jenny?_ Trying not to show how interested he now was, a difficult task for him as a proud Gryffindor, he deflected, "You realize I'd need to think about it, and even then I can't say for sure that I'll say yes, right?"

"I understand, and I'll certainly be continuing my search, but there are few people I'd trust with this duty more than you. I really do think this would be best for both of us," the headmaster added with a serene air.

"All right, then. I'll give it some thought. Thank you for your time," James said as he stood from the chair. At Dumbledore's nod he threw some Floo powder from a pot on the mantle into the fireplace, and only when he was safely back in the Longbottoms' guest wing did he let his smile out. The offer he had just received really  _was_  a good one, better than he could expect for being a tutor, he knew. It was the death rate and the logistics that worried him, not to mention the headache he was sure to get from cracking through the icy shell Malfoy had wrapped around Jenny.

_Still, I could manage. After all, I'm her_ _**father** _ _; despite the lies that woman has told her, what kind of child wouldn't want to know more about her real family? And a whole year to convince her to come home? Once she realizes I'm not as bad as Malfoy has said I am, she'll probably be open to coming home by the time the Christmas holidays roll around!_

_Really, how hard could it be?_

* * *

**The more I write, the more I find myself using similar background details in this story and** _**Faery Heroes** _ **. Thing is, I don't know if I'm basing them in the same general universe or if my muse is just too lazy to come up with new solutions for problems she's already solved.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	8. Never Trust a Politician

**discb, erbkaiser:**  The white witch Death told Jen about is a character we are never going to meet; I just needed to introduce the full scope of the white mage vs. black mage "cold war". It  _might_  be a little important later on…

 **gmoney480:**  No Luna in this chapter, but maybe the one after next? I know the story is going a bit slow here, but I need the summer chapters to lay the groundwork for the rest of this year and some of the next.

 **Guest #2:**  There are three reasons this story will not have smut. One, that is something that my writing talents do  _not_  extend to. Trust me, my attempts at it are pretty  _un_ -sexy. Two, sex scenes are prohibited on this site, and while that rule is not enforced consistently by any stretch of the imagination, it  _is_ occasionally enforced. It would be just my luck that it would be my story getting deleted. Three – and this is more to do with how you said I should "make use of that M rating" – this series was never rated M because of any sexual reasons, though Candyland is kind of skirting the line; it is rated M for graphic scenes of torture and murder.

**The poll for my next story is now closed, and the winner, by a healthy margin, is…** _**What Happens in Vegas** _ **. To everyone who voted, thank you very much. To everyone who voted** _**twice** _ **, thank you even more. I truly do appreciate all the input I received.**

**Disclaimer:**  Was Merlin said to have been a Slytherin, even though the legends about King Arthur and Camelot are set a full  _five hundred years_  before Hogwarts was supposedly built? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 8  
** **Never Trust a Politician**

"Just remember, all you need to do is walk inside, curtsey, say your piece, and then come up to our box. Don't worry about making any long speeches or—"

"Sirius, we've gone through the process of my Introduction every day for the past week. I think I understand what I'm supposed to do by now." The girl's purple eyes rolled in exasperation inside the shadows of the hood she wore. "I think you're more worried about this than I am."

Sirius nodded at that statement, though his hands did not stop their nervous rubbing. "Yes, I am, because I know how important this is. Today is when you make your first impression on the Wizengamot; how the Houses see you is going to affect  _all_  the interactions you have with them from this point forward. Excuse me if I want to make sure everything goes smoothly."

A frightening smile appeared on Jen's face. "Don't worry, Sirius. I'll make an impression, certainly, and I doubt it will be a  _bad_  one."

"What are you talking about?" he asked suspiciously. A bell chimed before he could get her to answer, and so he merely shot her a warning look before hurrying out of the small dressing room into a corridor. Slipping into the crowd streaming deeper into the complex, he allowed himself to be practically carried to the Wizengamot Chamber.

Even after a year as a member of the legislative and judicial body, the layout of the room never failed to impress him. Built into a natural valley between three hills, the amphitheater was partitioned into nearly a hundred cubicles, each eight feet to a side with walls rising to waist-height. Short banners decorated with the Houses' crests were draped over the walls of the boxes that faced the stage in the middle of the room. The domed roof was transparent, giving the chamber the feel of an outdoor arena; legend was that Rowena Ravenclaw had used this building as a proof of concept before casting the same spell on the ceiling of the Great Hall in Hogwarts.

Quickly climbing one of the nine flights of stairs leading all the way to the back row, Sirius's eyes naturally sought the spires that could just barely be seen between two of the hills. The building was close to an old castle, and though he had never found any proof supporting the claim, it was said to be the ruins of the once-great Camelot.

That qualification made, however, he understood why it was such a common belief. The Wizengamot had grown from the ruins of the Wizard's Council, an assembly of wizards and witches founded by Merlin himself that was meant to advise King Arthur about any and all magical threats and enforce his royal decrees on the wizarding populace. As the king and Merlin both grew older, the next head of the Council – whose name had been lost to the mists of time – swayed the body away from their duties to the king in favor of giving their support to Mordred, Arthur's bastard son by his half-sister Morgan le Fay. The young man was Arthur's only child and therefore the heir to the throne, and being a wizard himself, the Council was more than willing to support one of their own in his attempt at claiming the crown a few years early. When the battle between the two men and their armies was over, both leaders dead at the other's hand, the Council pulled away from Muggle concerns entirely and devoted all its time to governing the British magicals.

Of course, the quick change in tune was not enough to quell Merlin's wrath as he slew fully half of the members and forever changed the name of his former position to Chief Warlock. Chief Oath-breaker.

Sirius slipped into House Black's box to find several sheets of parchment, along with a quill and inkwell, already laid out on the low desk. He felt no concern over the preparations, even though he had had no hand in it; house-elves bonded to the Ministry placed the supplies shortly before the Wizengamot's bimonthly meetings, and each booth was inspected by the four Aurors now standing at attention on the edge of the stage. Only after all magic, malignant and benign, had been removed would the leader of the detail signal the members to enter the chamber.

A young witch, barely in her twenties, stood from a stool near the lone podium in the room. She tapped the wand on a crystal sunken into the lectern's surface and spoke into it, her voice magnified so that it could be heard over the assembly's mutterings. "All rise." Any wizard sitting hastily got to his feet. "Thus begins the fifteenth congregation of the Wizengamot of the year 1995, on the twelfth of August, Chief Warlock Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore presiding."

She scurried back to her stool, and Dumbledore pushed himself out of his throne-like chair and stepped up to the podium. "You may take your seats." Sirius settled himself into his chair with far less grumbling than other members of the Dark Houses around him. "Miss Geary, do we have any outstanding business from our previous meeting to attend to?"

"No, Chief Warlock," the woman answered timidly after checking the relevant minutes.

"Very well." The old man organized his notes in front of him and continued, "As I understand it, we have yet another group of young wizards and witches to welcome into this august body. May I introduce Mr. Neville Franklin Longbottom."

Sirius tapped his fingers impatiently as first the Longbottom boy and then Danny Potter were called into the room before joining their grandmother and father, respectively. While most common in the summer months, few meetings preceded without at least one new heir being Introduced. The Wizengamot met on the second and fourth Saturdays of each month, and the heirs of the member Houses were required to present themselves for formal recognition and acceptance on the meeting following their fifteenth birthdays. Much like the Naming process Jen had gone through on her birthday, this was a social custom rather than written law, but in a group as conservative as this one, the line between  _'traditional'_ and  _'legal'_  blurred and faded to nothingness.

"Miss Jennifer Bellatrix Black."

The Animagus perked up at Jen's name, and his jaw dropped when she entered the room. She had been wearing a plain black cloak when they left Grimmauld Place, and despite how much he pleaded, she had refused to show him exactly what outfit she was hiding underneath it. Now he knew why.

Clad in a sleeveless, low-scooped dress of dazzling white, gold embroidery racing down the bodice and filigree lining the collar, Jen dropped into a deep curtsey and recited the expected words. "Lords and Ladies of the Wizengamot, I, Jennifer Black, do entreat your acceptance into this body and your recognition of my place in my House."

Dead silence.

 _Not a surprise there. Merlin, Jen, what the hell are you doing?_  The message she was sending could not be murkier, nor more deliberate. On the one hand, white and gold were the colors of the Light, of purity and majesty; by adorning herself as she had, she was practically declaring her stance as a progressive, someone who would support the ideals of tolerance and acceptance of all, Pureblood and Muggleborn and even Muggle. Sirius saw some Heads of the Light Houses beaming and nodding as they no doubt envisioned this young witch taking the helm of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black, historically a Dark House and, in fact, often a leader of that political group.

On the other hand, and he could already hear the mutterings building around him from the rest of the Dark bloc members, the cut of her dress was  _exceedingly_  familiar. How could it not be? Sirius saw it several times a month when he visited his office in the Ministry building, for inside the section of the Wizengamot wing on the second floor reserved for the Dark Houses was one of the sole remaining – and unfortunately inanimate – portraits of Morgan le Fay. In it, she wore a dress of red and black that was otherwise identical to the one his goddaughter had on; even the broad, triangular clips holding Jen's kinky hair out of her eyes were the same, though forged from gold rather than red copper. In this minds of this side of the Chamber, her garb was not a sign of  _support_  for the Light Houses, but rather a slap to their faces. Her color, her words, might say one thing, but the truth would be far more subtle, as expected from a Dark witch in this day and age.

A look at the Neutral Houses, the largest of the three blocs, showed the normal wall of emotionless faces, though the redheaded heir of House Bones was smiling down at Jen from her seat next to Amelia.  _She did say that she was friends with the Bones girl, didn't she?_ , he wondered as he tried to recall the descriptions his goddaughter had given on one of her weekend trips back home.  _What was her name again? Stephanie? Sarah?_ _ **Susan**_ _, that's it._  Returning to his evaluation after that little tangent, he finally nodded in resignation. Unlike the Light side, there was no way to figure out what they were thinking by looking at the emotions they shared to the world, and he did not have the same access to their members that he did for the Dark sect. Whether they approved of Jen's stunt or not was a complete unknown.

Of course, that was not to say that  _all_  the audience thought Jen was really on their team. A number of the most bigoted Dark House representatives, Thaddeus Nott and Lucius Malfoy in particular, looked down at the girl with cold eyes and colder frowns, and a glance across the room found Augusta Longbottom glaring hatefully at Jen. Had the older witch been a basilisk, his heiress would be dead a thousand times over.

Dumbledore's voice was noticeably harder than normal as he asked, "Is there any who would challenge Miss Black's right to sit as Scion Black?" Sirius's eyes shot to James, and he was sure the old man's did as well, but other than sending the girl a longing stare, the Head of House Potter did nothing. "Very well. Scion Black, take your place among us."

"Thank you, Chief Warlock." She serenely climbed the stairs to their box and sat in a chair that appeared from nowhere as she was en route. Her fingers twitched before she laughed, "That was more fun than I expected."

"Jen, what the  _bloody hell_  were you thinking?!" he hissed, trying to be quiet enough that no one around them would be able to make out his words.

"You can talk at a regular volume, you know. I put a silencing charm around us." She grinned at him. "As for what I was thinking, I believe it was  _you_  who said I needed to make an impression."

"Mashing together signs that you're Light and Dark so no one knows what you really think is  _not_  what I had in mind!"

_Especially since I have a sinking suspicion you'll lean more towards the Dark, despite living with Muggles for most of your life. Your personal opinions are your own, much as I will likely disagree with them, but you don't need anyone finding out that you're not just a Dark witch but a_ _**dark** _ _witch._

She shrugged. "Well, it gets them thinking, at least. I can talk to Susan about what's happening amongst the Neutrals, but even after Tracey turns fifteen, I won't have any ears in the Light. This way, I've started putting out feelers in their direction.

"And don't yell at  _me_  about the dress," she added as an afterthought. "It wasn't even my idea."

Padfoot stirred in his chest and made his response a growl. " _Narcissa_."

"Aunt Andi helped, too, as far as I'm aware. They had Tattings putting this together since… April, I think they said. The only part I played in the plot was standing still so she could make sure it fit properly."

"Please, please,  _please_  tell me this is a one-time thing," he begged. Better to cut all this off today before it got any further out of hand.

"Don't go chasing your tail; I'm not about to wear this to any meeting but today's. It's far too flashy." She snapped her fingers under the desk to dispel the silencing charm, allowing them to hear Dumbledore call Lord Bradley up to the podium. "Besides, this is nothing compared to the uproar there will be when the  _other_  news breaks."

 _Thank you_ _ **so**_ _much for reminding me. It isn't like I've been worrying about that since I found out about the adoption._  "Just be careful." His muttered comment drew her attention back to him, and he continued, "You may have created some inroads to future allies, but you just made several enemies, too. Keep your eyes open, your wits sharp…"

"And my wand in my hand," she finished. Good advice for any Black.

* * *

"No, you go on ahead. I have a few things to take care of here first."

Watching Danny walk away with Neville and Augusta, James stretched his legs to regain some feeling in them and waited for the other representatives of the Light Houses to pass him on their way to the exit. With nothing else to do, his eyes returned to the focus of his attention for the previous two hours: his daughter. She was smiling faintly at something Sirius had said as she descended the stairs, stopping only to exchange a quick hug with another girl whose name he could not remember. There had just been too many heirs and heiresses to keep track of them all. Judging by the way the head of the DMLE was watching the interaction, he assumed it was the niece Edgar Bones had mentioned a few times before he fell in the War.

 _At least she has_ _ **some**_ _friends, even if she was Sorted into Ravenclaw rather than Gryffindor._  That she would break a family tradition disappointed him; the Potters had been nothing but Lions for four generations, and even then the only other House they had gone to was Hufflepuff, also a Light house. Jenny, though…

He shook his head in disappointment. While the Ravens were not as Dark as the Snakes, they were still far too conservative for his tastes, not to mention how  _curious_  they always were. He could not count the number of times in his school years he had overheard a group of Ravenclaws discussing what the exact reason was for some dark spell to be labeled as such. Why couldn't they just accept that it  _was_  dark and leave the topic well enough alone like a normal wizard would? Didn't they realize that thinking evil magic could be twisted and used for good was the first step to becoming Death Eaters?

If that weren't enough, many people from those two houses still put weight on following the so-called  _'Old Ways'_ , outdated traditions that he did not want his daughter sucked into. She had better things to do with her time than waste it praising, supplicating, or even thinking about a dead pantheon.

Jenny and Sirius disappeared into the crowd, and he sighed morosely. At least Sirius was a good godfather, just as he told Lily the man would be.  _But is he_ _ **really**_ _?_ , a nasty voice in the back of his mind whispered.  _After all, he lets her spend time with_ _ **Narcissa Malfoy**_ _, of all people. Even if he didn't murder Peter, he's still consorting with a Dark witch. Who knows how Azkaban affected him after twelve years?_

He frowned at that reminder and the doubts that came with it. Inviting the matriarch of the Malfoys back into Sirius's life might just be the tip of the iceberg; was Padfoot making other mistakes as a result of his time in prison? Better he get Jenny away from a poisonous environment like that before she got hurt any more than she already must be. She herself even knew that the Blacks were a wrong fit for her! Why else would she come here in white and gold, the colors of the Light? No, that was a cry for help if he ever saw one.

_Well, that just leaves me with one option, doesn't it?_

Standing from his chair, he made his way to the Chief Warlock's podium, where Dumbledore was deep in discussion with the lord that had spoken immediately after Danny and Jenny's Introductions. The eyepatch-wearing wizard exchanged one final statement with the old man, too quiet for James to hear, before walking away and leaving the two alone in the room. Dumbledore turned to him with a smile. "Ah, James. Where did young Danny wander off to this time?"

"He didn't wander; I just sent him on ahead with the Longbottoms. I had a quick question for you." At the quizzical expression the Leader of the Light sent him, he asked, "The Defense Against the Dark Arts position. Have you found anyone to fill it yet?"

Dumbledore sighed and shook his head, eyes on the notes on the podium as he collected them. "I'm afraid I haven't. Just like last year, no one has even applied, and I'm running out of time to find someone."

"Well, I don't think you have to worry about that anymore." James nodded when the headmaster looked up in surprise. "If the offer is still good, I'm more than willing to teach the class for the year."

"Oh,  _thank you_ , my boy. You have no idea how much of a burden you've lifted from these shoulders of mine," the elderly wizard replied with a smile, wiping imaginary sweat off his brow. "Come by my office on Monday, and I'll have your class schedule and rosters ready for you. Do you have idea where your emphasis will be?"

"My… emphasis?" he asked in confusion.

"Yes. Most of the DADA professors have some overarching theme to their notes. Alastor focused on curses, while Remus—"

"Creatures, right." Moony had bored him and regaled Lily with his lesson plans the summer before he started that year. Now that he thought about it, his own teachers in the subject had done something like this when he was a student. "I haven't given it much thought. Can't I just wing it?"

Dumbledore's frown told him quite clearly no, he could not. "I'll break out some records from previous years that we can go over Monday. Maybe you'll find some inspiration there."

A sigh preceded his nod of reluctant acceptance. The school year had not even started, and apparently he was already behind. Jenny had better appreciate what he was doing for her.

* * *

_The smell of popcorn and the laughter of other children surrounded the little girl as she tried hard to sprint down the main street of the fair, her enthusiasm curtailed by the tight grip her mother had on her hand. "Mummy,_ _**come on** _ _!"_

_"Wait a minute, sweetie. Mummy isn't as young as she used to be." The little girl shot the woman a pout, and her mother eventually sighed and relinquished her hand. "Just don't—"_

_"Wheeee!"_

_"_ … _run off. Merlin damn it."_

_The little girl was too far away to hear her mother's words; she was instead enthralled by the feel of all the wizards and witches she swept past and the colors and sounds of the booths. One in particular caught her eye, and she stopped to stare at the plush animals hanging just out of reach. Dogs, tigers, bears, and birds in pink and black and red…_

_"Well, hello there, dearie." A tall man, his long blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, bent down to talk to her at closer to her eye level. "I saw you looking at my toys. Do you like them?"_

_She nodded._

_"Do you want one to take home with you?"_

_She nodded faster._

_"All right, then. Where is your mummy?"_

_Her mother, right. The little girl glanced around, wondering where her mother could have wandered off to. A break in the crowd let her see the woman, and a shout drew her over. Her mother scolded, "_ _**There** _ _you are. What have I told you about doing that?"_

_She looked at the ground. "Don't…?"_

_"That's right, don't." Her mother looked into the stall, which she could not due to the height of the counter. "Well, at least you inherited my taste in games. That's something, at least. I'm guessing you want to play?"_

_"Yes!" she chirped, ignoring the fact that she had no idea what she was supposed to do. She had to have one of those cuddle toys!_

_"Your girl knows what she wants, that's for sure," the man laughed as he stepped behind the counter and her mother lifted her so she could stand on one of the stools in front. "Well, little lady, this game is as easy as one…" A dagger flew out of his sleeve to be plunged into the scarred wood. "Two…" A second knife joined the first. "Three." He pulled a third from behind the back and offered her the handle. "All you have to do is hit the targets I'm going to show you with these knives. Get all three, and you win a prize. Hitting a bullseye means I'll give you a_ _**bigger** _ _prize, understand?"_

_Her head was moving hard enough she wondered if it would fall off her shoulders._

_"This'll be thirty sickles, madam." After taking the silver coins from her mother, the blond man moved to one side and grabbed a rope connected to the top of a purple curtain stretched out across the stand. "And… go!" He pulled the rope, and the curtain fell._

_Against the back of the stand were three people, each gagged and tied to the wooden wall with their arms and legs spread. The little girl raised her hand like her mother showed her and, sticking the tip of her tongue out of her mouth in concentration, aimed at the first target, a wizard with black hair and grey eyes who was dressed in expensive robes. She whipped her arm forwards, and the knife sailed through the air to bury itself up to the hilt in the middle of his chest. He gurgled for a moment before his head dropped._

_The second target was a young woman, her hair teased up in cheerful pink spikes. She shook her head and tried to scream, but the rough cloth stuffed in her cheeks muffled the sound. The little girl's throw was not as good as the first, and she worried that she would miss, but again the knife found its home. Tears dripped from the woman's eyes with their ever-shifting colors before she, too, slumped over._

_The little girl wiggled her third knife out of the counter and sized up the last target. Unfortunately, this witch was struggling against the ropes tying her to the wall, and she forced her gag out of her mouth. Watery blue eyes stared into the little girl's own. "No, please don't do this. Don't hurt me!_ _**Please** _ _!"_

_The woman's sudden screech caused the little girl to jump, and the knife left her hand before she was ready. It spun through the air and hit the wall right next to the woman's neck, then bounced off to fall to the floor. Tears gathered in the little girl's eyes, and her heart broke; she wouldn't be getting a toy. Just before she started crying, blood spurted out in wide arcs from the cut her bad throw had made on the woman's throat. The woman gave the little girl one last agonized look before her black hair with its odd white streak fell in front of her face._

_"Three hits, and three bullseyes, even! That means you get the_ _**grand** _ _prize," the blond wizard cheered. He reached above the counter and pulled down a green snake as tall as the little girl that he then shoved into her arms. "Congratulations, princess!"_

_Her mother was just as happy, and she cackled loudly before wrapping her arms around the little girl. The child looked down to see the black skull and snake tattooed on her mother's left forearm before she heard the woman's voice whispering in her ear. "That's my girl."_

Jen shot up in bed with a strangled scream.

It took a minute for reality to sink back in, and when it did she dropped her head into her hands and sighed. "Oh, thank the Baron. It was just a dream." A terrifying nightmare, to be sure, but her connection to the wards let her feel Sirius and Cissy both still sleeping peacefully. She took several deep breaths and waited for the adrenaline to fade.

She blamed the visit to Azkaban the previous week for this. The other Blacks all said that Bellatrix was crazy, but she had thought at the time that they were merely using the term in a colloquial sense; many people were uncomfortable with the idea that a person might perform horrific acts while still being completely rational.  _'How could anyone do this?'_  they would ask,  _'Don't they know how much they're hurting other people? They_ _ **have**_ _to be crazy.'_  Jen had honestly expected to arrive at Bellatrix's cell and see just another monster like her.

But no, her adopted mother was  _legitimately_ disconnected from reality.

 _I really should have asked for more details before going ahead with the blood adoption_ , she thought, her fingers finding the two-inch-long scar running up her arm from her left wrist, the result of cutting herself with her bone dagger for various Voodoo rites. Wounds from dark magic could be healed by dark magic to prevent scarring, but those created by  _black_  magic? She had sliced along that line when her aunts asked for her blood for the ritual, and though she had felt the curiosity distorting the two women's faces when they saw it, neither had pressed for details, either thinking she would not answer that personal a question after only a week in their company or assuming it was an old mark after she healed the new laceration to leave otherwise unblemished skin behind.

 _Should have, but I didn't, and I have no one to blame for that but myself_. The comment she had made to Cissy when they were leaving the prison was intended to be a joke, something to lighten the somber mood after witnessing Bellatrix's hallucinations and paranoia, but apparently it had dug into her brain. She now shared blood with the other murderess, and as Cissy had said, Bellatrix was mentally ill  _before_  she was sent to Azkaban. Was it genetic? After swapping all of Lily's traits for Bellatrix's, did she now risk developing the same problems?

Would she become so obsessed with some ideal or some individual that her family and her friends, the only people whose lives held  _any_  value, would fall by the wayside?

The idea sent a cold shiver down her spine; that possibility was all too real. She summoned her pocket watch from her desk and felt the hands, the darkness outside her window too heavy to use her sight to determine the time. "Not even five in the morning.  _Ugh_." Snapping the watch closed, she flopped onto her back for another minute or two before sighing. There was no way she would be going back to sleep after that, despite the paltry four hours of rest she had gotten.

_May as well get up, then. I'll just have to make sure I put a glamour over any bags under my eyes before I head to the party._

* * *

Tracey put on an unconvincing smile and took the wrapped package from the older wizard's hands. "Thank you very much, Lord and Lady Goyle. Your gift is much appreciated."

The pair nodded and walked off, and she had to work hard not to roll her eyes. Judging by the shape and resilience, it was yet another child's toy. She mentally sighed; did they not realize she was a teenager and long past the age when she would enjoy a poorly thought-out birthday present like this? Then again, it could be yet another snub, just like the books on genealogy and blood purity she received on this day every year. She had to have at least seven copies of  _Nature's Nobility_  scattered throughout her bedroom, all of them used as doorstops or coasters or wedges under the wobbly legs of her table. She had not read the book a single time.

Most Purebloods would appreciate it more, she knew; the other Slytherins often got into arguments over whose blood was the most pure and magical, pointless attempts to one-up their rivals. As a half-blood, however, having the fact that her family and her family's allies cared not a whit about her due to her mother's Muggle heritage constantly shoved back in her face was beyond insulting. Did they really think she was so  _stupid_  that she wouldn't recognize the meaning behind their actions?

 _Probably_ , she decided, considering the behavior of her own so-called family towards her. They were bipolar at best: either her achievements – such as befriending the junior Triwizard Champion and future Head of House Black – were downplayed or ignored as if stained by her 'polluted' blood, or she was excessively and mockingly praised for something simple, almost as though she were a particularly dumb dog that had finally managed to learn a new trick. Her mother was treated even worse than she was, if such a thing was possible; at least other members of House Davis would cut off an insulting line of conversation about her when she entered the room, even if it resumed the moment she was away from their line of sight.

 _I can't wait till this is all over_ , she griped to herself. Having to paste a fake expression on her face time and time again when she wanted nothing more than to hex every single one of her grandfather's connections was agonizing. At least she would have a better time tomorrow after sorting through the gifts and writing  _'thank you'_  letters for them all. She and her mother had an annual tradition, a thumbed nose of sorts at the bigots she had the misfortune of sharing blood with, where they sold the books and obviously magical toys to secondhand shops, then used the money to buy her an  _actual_  present and just have a day to themselves.

As for the toys that could pass as nonmagical? She had her mother donate those to a Muggle orphanage out of generosity and not a little spite.

 _Not that it means_ _ **today**_ _is going to go by any faster_. She had  _hoped_  that this birthday would be different than those of previous years; for the first time, she had allies of her own.  _Friends_ , even. She had sent notes to all seven of her companions, each written in careful calligraphy by her own hand, though she added a postscript to Finch-Fletchley's and Lovegood's explaining that she would not be offended if they declined. House Davis would be most unwelcoming to the Hufflepuff for being a Muggleborn and to the poor, crazy blonde for being… well, poor and crazy. The others, though…

She supposed she had only herself to blame. She had forgotten an important detail: they were not technically  _her_  friends. They were  _Jen's_  friends, and they dealt with her as much as they did only because the Black heiress made a concerted effort to include her. Nearly all of them had excused themselves for various reasons, ranging from Patil's unrealistically detailed itinerary for her trip to India to see her grandparents to Kenneth's vague  _'previous engagement'_. Only Jen agreed to come, and she had yet to arrive.

Despite her reminders to herself that the other girl was still within the bounds of being fashionably late, Tracey worried that her best friend, maybe her only real friend, had forgotten her.

Her acquaintances  _had_  presented her with gifts, not that they made her feel much better. Four of them sent a variety of candies, MacDougal including a six-pack of butterbeer with the Honeydukes Reserve chocolate her owl delivered, but her grandfather and Head of House, Wallace Davis, took them away the instant he noticed the collection and placed them all in the bucket that held 'shared' sweets. Sweets she was prohibited from eating but were instead shared only among her Pureblood cousins. Perhaps the previous summer, she would have let it go just to avoid trouble, but this time she planned to sneak into the kitchen later that night and reclaim the tastiest morsels. There were some benefits to being their house-elf's favorite, and that included the odd intentionally misdirected eye.

Bones and Lovegood had not given items so easily stolen from her, thankfully. The redheaded Badger sent her a thin bracelet of silver, or more likely a silver alloy, with jade beads spread around the wire. She had never received jewelry of any kind from anyone besides her mother, so while it was probably nothing more than a trinket considering the wealth available to House Bones, she still greatly appreciated it.

Tracey was… honestly not quite sure how to react to Lovegood's gift: a remarkably detailed painting depicting her casually interacting with the other members of Jen's 'court'. She had not realized that the younger girl was such an artist, and considering the time and effort Lovegood must have spent creating this, she had promised herself that she would try to be nicer to the Ravenclaw in this upcoming school year. Sadly, that was not exactly  _difficult_ ; her jealousy of the girl's closeness to Jen had caused her to treat Lovegood rather badly.

A gout of emerald flame belched forth from the fireplace, and she smiled when she saw who it was emerging. "Jen! I was afraid you weren't coming."

"Yes, I do apologize for my lateness," the black-haired witch offered as a man followed her into main hall of the Davises' compound. The two shared enough facial features that Tracey would have known this was Lord Sirius Black even if she had never seen the wizard's photograph before. "Unfortunately, Sirius held up the proceedings, as usual."

"I'll have you know that Dora started it," the Head of House Black retorted. "She shouldn't have turned my shoes into chickens and then made them chase me around the house."

Tracey blinked in surprise and confusion. Chickens?

Jen smiled, causing strangely familiar purple eyes to sparkle. If she had had any delusions that her best friend would not be a heartbreaker in the coming years, they were now dashed.  _Maybe I can use that to my advantage_. Unaware of her plotting, Jen continued, "Actually, while Dora  _did_  transfigure your shoes, she did not have a hand in the  _chasing_  part."

Lord Black stared at his scion with a narrowed gaze. "So who  _was_  responsible?"

"I'm sure I have no idea." The fifth-year walked up to her, a wicker basket swinging from one arm, and offered it to the pseudo-hostess. "Happy birthday, Tracey."

Her curiosity was piqued, which she was sure was Jen's intent, and she took the basket before slowly opening the lid. An involuntary  _'Awwww'_  of delight escaped her when the black and orange head of a calico kitten popped out. Behind her, she could hear her grandfather's grumble and her mother chiding the old man under her breath.

She was a girl. She was allowed to like cute, fluffy, baby animals.

"I noticed how enviously you looked at the others' pets, and since you said you couldn't have any animals when you were younger, I figured now would be an excellent time to get you one," Jen lied. She  _knew_  it was a lie because she had told Jen after the Ravenclaw Task of the Triwizard Tournament that her grandfather would not permit her to buy one due to a certain…  _incident_  when she was much younger, and there was no way he was going to spend gold on her when he could use it to spoil her cousins. This, though, was a gift from one of the three Ancient and Most Noble Houses. For Wallace Davis to refuse to keep the cat now would be a  _terrible_  faux pas, a mistake that would assuredly spread throughout the gossip networks. Much as he hated her, he was not going to damage their House's standing just to spite her.

She handed the basket to her mother and pulled Jen into a loose embrace. "Thank you so much."

"You're welcome." Jen then murmured into her ear, "If you want, I can make her into a true familiar for you. Someone did the same to Loki when I was younger, and I know where to find the process."

 _ **Make**_ _the cat into a familiar? How would that even be possible?_  She knew, as did most magical-raised, that familiar bonds only formed after a long period of time in close contact between a witch and her pet _. Then again, this_ _ **is**_ _the witch who_ _ **mastered**_ _wandless casting before she was fourteen. If anyone could do it, she could._  "I'll think about it," she whispered back. Pulling away, she added in a normal voice, "Really, you are too good to me."

"Well, I  _do_  have a  _small_  request in regards to her."

Tracey eyed her friend warily. The tone of the girl's voice was just a little  _too_  light-hearted for her peace of mind. "And that would be…?"

Jen smirked and began walking towards the door leading outside to the compound's central garden, where the other guests had gathered. "For my own sake, just please don't name her  _'Kittikens'_."

"I was  _four_!" she shouted back, only mildly irritated by the jab. Yes, she had called her rabbit – the only other pet she had ever had –  _'Bunnikens'_ , but little kids weren't expected to be masters at naming animals.  _I knew I shouldn't have shared_ _ **that**_ _part of the story. She's never going to let me live that down, is she?_

"You two stay here," her grandfather ordered when the pair had turned the corner. "Try not to mess everything up. I need to speak to Lord Black."

Her mother waited until he was out of earshot to mutter, "Don't break a hip on your way there, you bloody old goat. I know I shouldn't wish anyone ill, but I can't wait till he kicks the bucket."

"You and me both."

"Hmph." The woman shook her head and gave her a small grin. "So that was the Jen girl you were telling me about all summer?"

"Not  _all_  summer," Tracey hurriedly qualified, a blush staining her cheeks. It had been so nice to be able to tell her mother about how she now had friends that she  _might_  have gone overboard on the subject. Just a little.

"If you say so. But still, she's your friend? Not just an ally or an acquaintance, but a real friend?"

The birthday girl smiled slightly when the kitten latched on curiously to her approaching finger and tried to suckle milk from it.  _Leave it to Jen to find a way around whatever obstacle is in her way_. "The best."

* * *

**I promise that the story generally won't have nearly as many Arthurian references as this chapter did, but since the plot that eventually became the Black Queen series was heavily influenced by that mythos, there will be bits and pieces that pop up now and again.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	9. Truth Stranger than Fiction

**YuriPrince:**  James's attitude is mostly due to him conflating  _Dark_ ,  _dark_ , and  _evil_. The first refers to a sociopolitical philosophy; blood purity, isolation from the Muggle world, and support of plutocracy are hallmarks of Dark-minded individuals. The second term is for someone who uses dark magic, which is aggressive and destructive in nature and fueled by one's negative emotions, like anger and hatred. The third term I shouldn't need to explain. Admittedly, many of the Dark Houses used to use dark magic extensively back in the olden days, and you can do some pretty evil things with dark magic – the various black magics being the best examples – but a wise man knows those three terms are distinct. James… isn't exactly a wise man.

**So…** **Yeah, this chapter kind of got away from me, and what was meant to be 3,000 words max became over 7,500.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did Snape honestly go by himself into the tunnel under the Whomping Willow when he was a student at the direction of Sirius, someone he absolutely loathed and had  _less_  than zero reason to trust? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 9  
** **Truth Stranger than Fiction**

Rita's heels clacked loudly as she walked down the tiled corridor leading to the Hall of Records. With a flip of her blonde ringlets, she pointedly ignored the hostile eyes of the Ministry workers she passed; though the employees of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement despised her for the number of articles she had penned that depicted them as the idiotic buffoons they were, they and she both knew there was nothing they could do in retaliation. Publishing her views outright would see them descend upon her and slam her with trumped-up libel charges, but so long as she couched her accusations in rumor and speculation, she was safe from any reprisals.

Oh, how that burned them!

She smiled faintly as she neared her goal. The Hall of Records was the center of the Ministry's information hub. Every form, every slip of parchmentwork, every single piece of documentation necessary for running the country was stored in that six-story library. Admittedly, there were several sections that were restricted, access only allowed by the Keepers who ran the office, but the lowest level was open to the public for any witch who wanted trivial or dated information.

 _Not what I need, of course, but it_ _'_ _s so much easier to break into a house through an open_ _door than a_ _locked_ _window._  Shooting a mocking grin to the investigators who had just exited the room and receiving sharp glares in return, she pushed open the tall double doors. A quick glance at the clock above the Keepers' desk in the middle of the room assured her that she had arrived at the perfect time, only ten minutes until the Hall officially closed.

She crossed the room and hid herself in one of the census aisles, her hands paging through the numerous sheets of parchment while her eyes watched the hands of the clock rather than text. The chime signaling five-thirty echoed loudly through the practically abandoned library, and as if summoned by the sound, a portly wizard in an ink-stained orange robe hustled over to her. Her gaze slid back to the boring columns of numbers in front of her, though they were both aware it was only an act. Higginbotham was a most valuable resource of hers.

"Madam?" the man said, gesturing towards the door. "The Hall has closed for today. I have to ask you to leave."

"Consider the question asked."

He turned to look around before scooting deeper into the stacks, and his voice lowered as he hissed, "Skeeter, I don't know what you're up to this time, but I can't help you. That stunt you pulled with the Parkinsons nearly  _cost me my job_."

She avoided rolling her eyes at his complaint, but it was a near thing.  _Poor baby,_ _ **almost**_ _losing a job that pays five sickles an hour to stand around all day and point people to the right shelves. Yes, that would be_ _ **such**_ _a tragedy,_ _ **far**_ _more important than revealing that Eugene Parkinson gave Madeline Jones a house to keep her quiet about their affair._  "Yet you're still here, so I can only guess you escaped without  _too_  much punishment."

"That's not the point—"

"Ah," she interrupted, pointing at him with one bright green fingernail. "That actually  _is_  my point. Your bosses got mad, sure, and they blustered a little, but we both know there was nothing connecting you to anything. They're just trying to rattle your cage."

"And it's  _working_ ," he shot back. "If you want to keep getting my help in the future, you need to back off now."

She nodded absently. It was a bluff; he knew it, she knew it, and he knew she knew it. Why he thought it would work, she had no idea. "Very well, if you insist." He sighed in relief. "I suppose I'll have to write my next article on something else, then. Maybe how a certain Keeper has a habit of inviting pretty young witches behind the stacks for some  _hands-on_  study sessions." The wizard paled dramatically, and sensing weakness, she went in for the kill. "I'm sure I could get a few good interviews with those girls, maybe even Nadia Patterson?"

"Shh!" he demanded, furtive eyes swinging over the empty room behind him. She, on the other hand, innocently buffed her nails on her robe. Having his little tryst with the middle daughter of his boss's boss splashed across the  _Daily Prophet_  was his greatest fear; the discovery of that lovely piece of blackmail was what earned her his cooperation in the first place. "Damn it, Skeeter, are you  _trying_  to get me fired?"

"Of course not, Mark, of course not." She shot him a crocodile's smile. "Just reminding us both of what's at stake. Let's avoid doing anything  _drastic_ , shall we?"

Higginbotham's shoulders slumped as he relented. "Fine. What do you want?"

"Nothing more than usual. You close up like nothing's happened, give me the key to the House records, and I'll let myself out when I'm done."

"Just don't leave a mess like last time," he pleaded, pulling a heavy bronze key out of his pocket and passing it to her. When his hand retreated, it had two golden galleons clasped inside. She was not in a habit of bribing her informants – blackmail was  _so_  much easier on her coin purse – but though she would never tell anyone, she needed to keep Higginbotham happy, or at least content. She could ruin him, and she would if he ever double-crossed her, but getting him fired from the Hall would still ruin her best source of scandal and intrigue.

The despondent wizard walked away, and she watched idly in her beetle form as he and the other two Keepers on duty trimmed the lamps and spelled the day's perused records to return to their shelves. Once the door had slammed shut, she extended her gossamer wings and took to the air.  _Ground floor_ _'_ _s pointless records, first is current laws and procedures, second_ _'_ _s House and personal records_. She buzzed over the railing of her selected level, her flight allowing her to bypass completely the alarms and wards on the staircase. Her tiny body swelled as she shifted back into a witch, and she paused a moment to stretch and relieve the ache between her shoulder blades that always developed when she had to transform. She was sure another Animagus somewhere could tell her how to avoid that, but there were only eight on record in Britain, and none of them had any reason to help her. Several, including Minerva McGonagall and Sirius Black, the most recently registered member, did or soon would have grievances against her.

Oh, well. Such was the life of an investigative reporter.

Along the wall were a number of thick wooden doors, each bearing the names of a few families and arranged in no particular order, and she walked down the hallway to find the one marked  _'_ _Bones, Caldwell, Black_ _'_. The borrowed key turned easily in the lock, and the door faintly glowed blue around the edges before swinging inwards on its own to reveal rows and rows of cabinets. She strolled inside and made her way to the back of the room, where the most recent years worth of records would be kept. Her eyes finally landed on a drawer labeled with the Black name and bearing a beginning date of 1865 but no end date.

"About time," she muttered to herself. She gave the cabinet's handle a strong tug and bared her teeth in a sharp grin when the front folder was the one she had been searching for. "J. Black, born 1980. Let's see what secrets you're hiding and what's got the old farts in such a tizzy."

She gently tugged the folder out of the stuffed drawer and flipped through the surprisingly few sheets of parchment inside.  _Recognition of House membership, designation as heir, entitlement as a dragon-slayer, parentage, transcript of Wizen_ _…_  Her litany trailed off as her mind caught up with her eyes, and she turned back to the previous page. "Parents… Merlin and Morgana. How did they hide this from everyone?"

Her Quick-Quotes Quill and a roll of parchment flew out of her handbag as she decided how best to frame her next article. She knew that reporting on the Blacks' little darling was going to be risky, but this? This was sticking her hand down the lion's throat and poking it in the eye.

Her smile grew wider as she considered the firestorm she was about to set off. Pricking powerful people was always dangerous, but as they all eventually discovered, that danger was what she lived for.

* * *

**The Blacks** **'** **Shameful Secret Exposed!**

_Just over a year and a half ago, the House of Black pulled itself back from the brink of extinction_ , writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent.  _Their current Head, Lord Sirius Black, who at the time was thought to be a cold-blooded mass murderer, presented himself to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement with the real killer of Lord Charlus Potter and Marked Death Eater, Peter Pettigrew. At the time, there was rampant speculation as to how that Ancient House would recover from the straights it found itself in after nearly a decade of being outside the public eye, but most doubts had been assuaged by his sixth month of lordship. As a young wizard still, it was expected that he would soon choose a wife and sire an heir for his much-reduced House._

_House Black had yet another surprise to reveal, however. They_ _**already** _ _had an heiress, the then-fourteen-year-old Jennifer Black. Lord Black was quick to recognize her as his legitimate successor, and she soon proved herself a capable young witch when she was selected as Hogwart_ _'_ _s Junior champion during the Triwizard Tournament. Not only did she single-handedly slay an Antipodean Opaleye dragon in the very first challenge presented to her, her scores consistently stayed close to the lead, and she ended the Tournament as the winner in the junior bracket._

_One thing was always troubling about Miss Black, however; where had she been all this time? Why did she appear only then? Who was she_ _**really** _ _?_ _Lord Black refused to elaborate on the few occasions he was asked about her history, and many suspected that she was his own child, born from a youthful dalliance and then hidden away when he was sent to Azkaban. Ironically, this explanation is not far from the truth, but in a way no one could have expected._

_Though it took more than a little digging, this reporter has discovered the facts about Jennifer Black_ _'_ _s parentage. Her father, in an unexpected twist, is none other than Lord James Potter. Yes, dear readers, you read that correctly; the heiress of House Black is the half-sister of the Boy-Who-Lived, Danny Potter. This shock I felt was only compounded when I noticed who her mother was, a name I and many others hoped never to see again._

_Bellatrix Lestrange._

_What impossible string of circumstances could have lead to such an incomprehensible coupling? Was James Potter as unaware of his daughter_ _'_ _s existence as the rest of the us, or did he have a hand in hiding her from the world out of shame? What message is the Black family sending by choosing the only child of You-Know-Who_ _'_ _s right hand witch as the future leader of their House?_

_We at the_ Daily Prophet _don'_ _t have those answers, but when we find out, dear readers, so will you._

Jen pursed her lips as Sirius's voice trailed off. "When we were discussing how to reveal my adoptive parentage, I do not believe  _this_  was named as one of the options."

"No, it wasn't.  _Damn_  that Rita Skeeter!" he roared, balling the newspaper up and throwing it against the far wall.

Across the kitchen table from her, Jen watched Cissy silently butter a scone. Someone unfamiliar with the older witch might think that she was unaffected by their carefully drawn plan swirling down the drain, but the teenager could see how her aunt's hands were shaking the slightest amount and how Cissy's teeth were grinding through her sonar. Setting the food down for a moment, the woman hissed out a shallow breath. "Damn her, indeed. I think I might need to have a short chat with her, remind her just why the  _Prophet_ has always been careful to ignore the Ancient Houses in its quest for petty sensationalism. Perhaps I'll take Ted with me, make a day of it."

"Any chance I can tag along?" Jen asked, lifting her knife and waving it in a seemingly idle fashion directly in front of her throat. "I have a few…  _sharp_  words I'd like to share with Skeeter myself."

" _You_  most definitely aren't going," Sirius answered. He eyed the knife until she returned it to the table. "Trust me, as satisfying as setting up someone you hate to be killed is at the time, that's not a road you want to go down. It never works out the way you imagine."

"This advice is the result of whatever the issue is between you and Snape, I presume?"

He sighed and lowered his gaze to the table. "Without a doubt the thing I regret most in my life. That I nearly got Moony executed in the process just makes the whole situation even worse. You know that Snape and I hated each other practically from the start, right?" She nodded; he had mentioned that briefly when she told him the previous year about the  _very_  rocky first lesson she had had with the professor, though he did not go into any great detail. "Merlin, I don't even remember what set it all off anymore, it's been so long. Some tiny, insignificant thing, I'm sure.

"Anyway, I noticed him spying on us one day in sixth year and asked James to tell me how he had 'discovered' the tunnel under the Whomping Willow that led to the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmeade. James caught on quick enough, and we made it sound like we were going through it again that night. Snape figured this was a great way to get us suspended or expelled, exactly as I planned, and it was only later that night that James remembered his sense of decency and kept Snape from getting mauled." He shook his head. "That's the thing about our family's temper; we have a bad habit of jumping straight from schoolboy grudge to attempted murder without thinking about the possibilities in between or considering the possible outcomes."

"Of course, most of us also are more subtle about our revenge than he was. It's the Gryffindor in him," Cissy added casually.

"In case you missed it, I'm trying to explain why she  _shouldn_ _'_ _t_  commit a felony,  _not_  teach her how to do it more successfully."

Jen rolled her eyes.  _Oh, Sirius. Elsie was a much better teacher about how to hide evidence of murder than Cissy is. I expect_ _ **I**_ _could teach you two a few things about it._  Not giving any hint of her dark thoughts, she instead asked, "Fine, then what are we going to do about this?"

"We launch a counterattack." The table's other occupants looked at Cissy, who continued, "Right now, everyone is reeling from this revelation. The faster we put our own story out there, the more off-balance our audience will be, and the more easily they'll accept what we say as fact. Sirius, would you send an owl to the  _Prophet_  office requesting an interview for this evening? I'll Floo-call Andi, Ted, and Dora and get them over here. We don't have a lot of time to plan this out."

"And me?" she asked.

Her aunt locked eyes with her. "You figure out what parts of your past you want to become public knowledge. You've never told us the whole story, and honestly I don't think I really want to know, but the closer we can tie our cover to the truth, the less likely you'll be to trip up and contradict yourself later." The older witch sighed. "I know it's not an ideal plan, but thanks to Skeeter, we're going to need to be quick on our feet for this one."

* * *

"—And  _that_  is why the Arrows are sure to win the League next year!"

Danny rolled his eyes as his dad discussed Quidditch with Neville. He had heard the same argument, or at least one similar enough, practically his entire life; his mother was a stalwart Wimbourne Wasp supporter, the bitter rivals of his father's favorite team. That had always confused him, considering she never seemed to care how they played, but he suspected it was more to do with getting on his dad's nerves than anything else.

Personally, he took a guilty pleasure in rooting for the all-female Holyhead Harpies. What red-blooded boy wouldn't?

His mum shared a glance and a smile with him across the table as she paid the  _Daily Prophet_  owl. A quick snap had the newspaper unrolled, and she sipped from her tea before looking at the front page. He was about to return to his own breakfast when he noticed her face growing progressively paler. "Mum? What's wrong?"

She did not hear him, too wrapped up in an article. Her hands shook the more she read, and then  _something_ finally tipped her over the edge. She dropped the paper, her hands flying to her mouth and tears pouring down her cheeks, and without a word of explanation she jumped to her feet and ran out of the room.

"Lily?" his father called after her before glancing to him. "What was that all about?"

"I… I don't know. She was reading something in the  _Prophet_  and just… freaked out."

His dad frowned at that and walked over to look at the news himself. He did not have to search for long, giving Danny a chance to see his other parent become shocked at whatever was printed there. "That… That's impossible. It can't be. She isn't… Lils!" The man sprinted away in pursuit of his wife.

Neville looked over curiously, and Dame Augusta was also giving the paper a wary gaze. The boy whispered, "That must be some article."

 _This can_ _'_ _t be good. It is something to do with Voldemort?_  Danny shivered; he was quite thankful he could not remember the night his grandfather had died and Voldemort was defeated. Just the idea that that monster was walking around again, destroying and murdering, filled him with dread, and that was without taking into account him being the number one target.

His heart racing, he slowly walked around the other end of the table and picked up the paper.  _Okay, good. If it was something to do with the war, it_ _'_ _d be front page news. But if that isn_ _'_ _t it, what could have gotten to Mum and Dad like that?_  He glanced over the articles and frowned; they had already talked about the speech Fudge had made the previous day, and that was the most important article printed. The next big one, located just below the fold, was something about the Blacks.

"I don't know. Nothing seems that important…" He trailed off as his eyes found something strange in the Black article: his father's name. His great-grandmother was a Black, he knew, but their family hadn't had anything to do with that House since. Why was his father mentioned, then?

He almost put the paper down when he realized it was all about Jennifer Black. That girl was  _not_  one of his favorite people; in fact, if asked he would rank her at the same level as Malfoy in terms of students he absolutely despised. She had the same condescending arrogance that the blond ponce did, and while she may not have challenged him to a midnight duel and sent Filch after him like Malfoy had, she had instead kept him from getting a fire-proof cloak when he was forced to fight a dragon in the Triwizard Tournament. If he weren't as good a flyer as he was, he would have died.

That was not the only time she had humiliated him over the previous year. Catching him with a tornado and flinging him into a wall, leaving Ron tied to a post like he wasn't worth helping, cursing him and Neville in the back rather than attack them honorably, and then, during the final Task, banishing him into a wall and breaking his arm, only then to attack him right after Diggory had called for a cease-fire. She was a sneaking coward who reveled in the other students' admiration and acted like she was the queen of the world. They were as different as night and day.

Still, he was curious about his father's mention, and so he kept reading. A minute later, he dearly wished he had not.  _My…_ _my sister?! Dad had an affair? And with_ _…_ _with a Dark witch, a Death Eater?!_  No wonder his mum had left; to find out about this through the  _Daily Prophet_ …

"Danny? What does it say?"

"Merlin, Nev, it's…" He trailed off as he looked at his godbrother, the boy who had effectively lost both his parents at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange. "Uh…"

* * *

Albus let the newspaper fall, rubbing his eyes as if that could change the words on the page. "How? How did they do something like  _this_? Did they mislead Skeeter, use her to spread a false rumor about Jenny's parentage? No, that wouldn't make any sense. If they wanted to tap her poison pen, they would have made sure that it wasn't aimed at them as well."

He sighed. Assuming the Blacks had  _not_  manipulated Skeeter into portraying the girl as Bellatrix's bastard daughter, that meant the reporter had discovered that false fact on her own. The Ministry's records, perhaps? He knew that the children Introduced to the Wizengamot had to have their identities verified, but as he had not been part of that body prior to being elected to the seat of Chief Warlock, he was completely in the dark about how the process actually worked. Could Sirius have bribed whatever Ministry worker was working that day to push forward this fantasy as truth?

If so, Albus despaired of how he could save the young man. Between a dozen years in Azkaban and Jenny's own inherent evil, he might have already fallen deeply into Darkness. It certainly explained why Sirius had initially been so reluctant to rejoin the Order when he came to call.

 _Everyone she has contact with, she corrupts_ , he thought, sinking back into his chair.  _They all need to be watched, especially Miss Bones and Miss Davis. The latter was already well on her way to becoming a Dark witch between her family and her hatred of even her own housemates, and the former_ _…_  He shook his head.  _That truly was a masterstroke on Jenny_ _'_ _s part. Get close to Amelia_ _'_ _s niece, and then she has access to the head of the DMLE. Depending on the leverage she can bring to bear, she could quite possibly manipulate Amelia into covering up any crimes she commits. Already she is setting herself up to be a worse Dark Lady than Tom is a Dark Lord._

Pushing himself to his feet, he began pacing the length of his office.  _But what can I do to stop her before she casts her shadow over the entire world? I told James that working here would let him forge a connection to her, but that was at_ _ **best**_ _wishful thinking on my part. If she has gone so far to integrate herself into the Black family as to publicly call_ _ **Bellatrix**_ _her mother, I doubt she will leave its dark embrace to return to her father_ _'_ _s House._

 _Then again_ _…_  Albus paused mid-stride as he considered the interactions between Jenny and the rest of the Blacks he had witnessed.  _Despite how they might have twisted it over the generations, that House always valued love of family above all else. Rather than replace James with someone else, as well, she claimed him as her father on whatever form Skeeter found. Has she bought into the same blood purist propaganda Tom did and convinced herself that James, a Pureblood, is an acceptable parent? If so, he_ _ **might**_ _actually have a chance to change her mind somewhat. She is, after all, a teenage girl; they are the very definition of inconstant._

_Perhaps he_ _**could** _ _succeed. Heading her off before she becomes a true threat would be far better than trying to justify a war against an underage witch. Yes, I will keep an eye on the situation, but for now I have no recourse but to trust that James_ _'_ _s love for her and the importance she places on family can disarm her._

* * *

"How  _interesting_ ," Voldemort murmured as he folded the  _Daily Prophet_. To think, of all the people he could have kidnapped for his resurrection, the blind girl who had found her way into his clutches would be his chief enforcer's  _daughter_. When he required the Death Eaters to pledge all they had and were to his cause, he was not exactly expecting something like this.

At least he no longer had any fear that his reconstructed body would 'inherit' any problems if theirs was the bloodline he had used.

He looked out the window and over the crashing waves as he pondered what this could mean for the rest of his campaign. As appropriate as Riddle Manor was for meetings with his servants in terms of impressing upon them his power, it was too closely tied to his past identity for him to actually  _live_  in it. Dumbledore, wretched old bastard that he was, would surely send someone to investigate the house sooner or later.

No, better by far to reside elsewhere. He had chosen a town at random, then selected a house in that town, before breaking in one night shortly after his return and murdering the young couple and their infant son inside. A few wards to prevent the Muggles from noticing that the house had seemingly disappeared overnight, several more to keep himself safe from anyone trying to find him magically, and he could rest in relative comfort.

_This girl just can_ _'_ _t help but make my decision on what to do with her difficult, can she? I planned to kill whom_ _ever_ _'_ _s blood I utilized in the ritual, but then she displayed an astonishing knowledge of necromancy for her age. That made her valuable enough to keep, even for me to offer her a place among my servants, yet she not only spurned my proposition but also destroyed my Horcrux. Just yesterday, I was sure I would kill her the next time I saw her, but now? Being Bellatrix_ _'_ _s child? Why can you not be_ _**simple** _ _, Black?!_

He chuckled mirthlessly. The witch had clearly inherited  _all_  the Blacks' traits, both good and bad. She was powerful, intelligent, and dark, yet at the same time utterly infuriating and unpredictable. Killing her would be simple, but how would it affect his long-term goals? Necromancers did not exactly grow on trees, after all, and though Bellatrix never showed the same devotion to her House that Arcturus had, he had no way of knowing how she would react should she discover that he had murdered her only child. It was entirely possible that she would stab him in the back at the worst possible moment.

Considering the time and effort he had put into training her in the Dark Arts, that was a fight he would much rather forego.

"What to do, what to do?" His hand swept over the skin on his scalp, and he could not withhold a grimace. While he enjoyed the benefits that came with his greatly modified body – increased resistant to others' magic, heightened reflexes, greater physical stamina – if there was one thing he had missed about his human form over the years, it was having hair. It would give him something to fiddle with while thinking and at the same time keep him comfortable.

The Death Eaters thought he constantly wore his hood up throughout the winter months because it made him look more intimidating, not realizing it was simply because his head was cold.

A pop caused him to look to his side and fix his ruby gaze on the house-elf carefully setting plates on the table. She turned and said, "Your breakfast is ready, Master Dark Lordliness, sir."

"Thank you, Melody, that will be all for now," he replied, carefully keeping his disdain hidden. The elf gave a small smile before vanishing again.

He shook his head as he considered how strange it was that he, the  _Dark Lord_ , would have a better relationship with his own elf than any three of his Death Eaters put together. Oh, it was a travesty that such awe-inspiring magics were wasted on a race of mere servants when that power should rightfully be in the hands of their masters, but as Lucius had so ably proven, angry elves had a habit of causing abusive wizards untold amounts of irritation, discomfort, and even pain. There was too much he had to do to prepare for the return of war for him to worry about housework, but even he needed to eat and sleep. An elf made the domestic issues much simpler, allowing him to avoid wasting time on purchasing and preparing food or cleaning the house he had taken, and one he could trust not to inconvenience him because she was offended was well worth the gold he had payed for her.

From his exploration of Hogwarts decades ago, he knew that house-elves enjoyed serving kind masters. While being  _'nice_ _'_  to the creature was beyond him, basic politeness was well within his powers.

His fork speared a bit of sausage as he directed his thoughts once again to his most pressing concern. Black was too great a prize to give up and would be too dangerous a foe to let live should her understanding of dark magic increase. He nodded, his course decided. He was not one for second chances – Dumbledore was more than welcome to maintain a monopoly on that – but he  _could_  make an exception this single time. His greatest grudge was her killing Nagini, but it was not as if she could possibly know what the serpent truly was, and he still had four other anchors to the living world, even with his old journal destroyed at Potter's hand.

Yes, Jennifer Black would have one last opportunity to make the right choice and avoid a messy, agonizing death.

* * *

Lawrence Jones tapped his foot irritably as he was yet  _again_  stuck waiting for his cameraman to show up. This was the sixth time in a month the boy had been late, and if that pattern continued, he would have no choice but to fire the eighteen-year-old and find someone else.

"I'm  _so_  sorry, Mr. Jones," the boy huffed as he Flooed into the  _Daily Prophet_ _'_ _s_  office. "There was—"

"I don't care," he snapped back, shutting the younger wizard up. "We were supposed to be there five minutes ago, and the Blacks are  _not_  people you make wait. Especially not when it's a story this big."  _And even more when it gives me a chance to knock Rita_ _'_ _s legs out from under her._  He stomped past the cringing boy and flung some powder into the fireplace. "Black Townhouse."

Stepping smoothly out of the flames on the other end, he barely silenced a groan at the sight of five impatient Dark wizards and witches arranged before him. He bowed to the man sitting alone on the couch in the middle of the elegant room, his assistant copying the behavior upon entering. "My humblest apologies for our lateness, Lord Black. We were delayed by circumstances beyond our control."

" _'Circumstances beyond your control_ _'_. Yes, I well understand that situation," the Head of the House replied, giving Lawrence a narrowed gaze. "It is, after all, why we are meeting this evening in the first place."

"Indeed, milord. Is Miss Black going to be joining us?" he asked, glancing over the gathered nobles.

"Later, but not just yet," one witch, a younger woman with spiked purple hair, answered. She petted the black cat resting in her arms for a moment before explaining, "My cousin was quite upset at the article this morning. She told us she would need a few extra minutes before she considered speaking with anyone from the  _Prophet_."

He was hard-pressed not to smile at that statement.  _Oh, Rita, you have no idea what enemies you made today._  "If she ultimately decides not to come down, would you please give her our regards? It was not the intention of anyone in the office to distress her so."

"We will. Now, I expect you have a number of questions?" Lord Black asked.

"Yes, sir." He sat in the chair left out for him, pulling a scroll of parchment and a DictaQuill from his pocket. He sighed with relief when the other wizard gave it a brief nod. Rita may prefer her Quick-Quotes Quill, but that was one reason why she got no respect from  _real_ journalists. "I think the first question that everyone wants the answer to is the simplest one. Is it true that Miss Black is the daughter of James Potter and Bellatrix Lestrange?"

"She is," a second witch answered. Lawrence startled as he belatedly recognized her as Narcissa Malfoy, the wife of Lord Lucius Malfoy. "The only child of my elder sister."

He gulped; honestly, he had hoped that accusation was Rita finally overstepping her bounds and outright lying. "I see. May I ask how exactly such a… such an  _un_ _expected_  union came to pass?"

"You can ask, but I'm afraid we can't answer," replied Lord Black. At his surprised blink, the wizard explained, "We don't actually know, ourselves. The first anyone else in the family learned about her was in 1986."

Malfoy continued, "While I deplore the crimes my sister committed, she is still family, and I make an effort to visit her in Azkaban once or twice a year. During one of my trips, she was more lucid than normal and asked me how someone named  _'Jennifer_ _'_ was doing. I was understandably confused and pressed for more details, and to my shock, she told me that that was the name of her daughter. She never mentioned that she had any children, nor had I noticed that she was ever pregnant. Bellatrix was insistent that I check on her little girl, however, so after returning and explaining the situation to our current Head of House, my great-uncle Arcturus, I followed her directions to locate Jen."

"Where was she?"

"Bellatrix had worried that her daughter could be used against her, so she hid Jen with a Muggle family living just outside Birmingham; even if someone  _had_ discovered that Jen had been born, no one would think to look outside the magical world for her. I arrived at their doorstep and asked after her, at which point they practically threw her into my arms. When my sister placed Jen under their care, she had not explained that she was a witch, and so the couple was completely unprepared for her accidental magic. It did not help that Jen's powers were particularly active, sometimes manifesting twice or more a month, and she was terrified of both it and her adoptive parents' reactions to her."

Lawrence gaped for a moment. "She was  _scared_  of her own magic?" His parents had celebrated every time he caused a toy to float or summoned a biscuit. For a young witch to fear her innate abilities was… just  _wrong_. He could not even  _begin_  to imagine living like that.

"In her defense, she displayed a predilection for conjuring fire and lightning when she became emotional, so that reaction was understandable," Malfoy interjected, "but yes, the entire household was frightened. I promised that I could calm her down and keep her safe, and the Muggles were quite relieved to see her go. They more or less told me to take her away and never return, so I Obliviated them and brought her back to our world."

"She was raised here in London, then?"

The Blacks shared a glance. "Not  _exactly_. I spent quite a bit of time with her as she grew up, and Great-uncle Arcturus paid close attention to the letters he received, but she did not live with either of us. He hired an immigrant witch, Elizabeth Durant, to take care of her. Mostly it was so we could keep her identity a secret in case anyone with a grudge against Bellatrix thought to come after her."

" _Mostly_?" he repeated, interest piqued.

"Off the record?" He lifted the quill from the parchment. "When my sister was growing up, she displayed a number of disturbing behaviors. Mistreating our cat, laughing when I and Andromeda hurt ourselves, seemingly little things that only during the War did we realize were warning signs of her future sadism and cruelty. By having Jen raised by someone unfamiliar with Bellatrix, we had an impartial observer who would let us know if she developed any of her mother's…  _quirks_. Thankfully, growing up she was an intelligent but otherwise normal little girl."

A tension he did not even know he had loosened at Malfoy's words. Bellatrix Lestrange's evil was infamous, and he was more than a little relieved to hear that the Blacks had been careful that they would not release another monster into the world. He considered asking if he could include this explanation before assuming they would rather the world not know that their heiress had been held at arm's length throughout her childhood. He  _could_ , however, make sure he implied she was perfectly safe to be around.

Returning the DictaQuill to its place, he prompted, "Okay then, why did we only learn about her existence this past year? I'm guessing there was a reason she did not attend Hogwarts for the first three years of her education."

"She was supposed to," the third witch answered.  _The other sister Malfoy mentioned, Andromeda?_ , he wondered. "Unfortunately, Arcturus passed away in April of 1991, just before Jen was old enough to go to school. Narcissa contacted me at that point, and after explaining the circumstances, we agreed that without a Head of House to protect her should her identity be discovered, it was just too dangerous. We instead split our time teaching her what she would have learned had she been able to go. Our original plan was that she would make her debut to the Wizengamot after taking her OWLs, at which point she could take her seat as a non-voting member on her own without an adult vouching for her, but then Sirius escaped and proved his innocence. When the Ministry declared him Head of House and he was fully recovered from his time in Azkaban, we introduced them."

"And I could not have been more shocked," Lord Black cut in with a smile. "After getting to know her a little, though, I don't think I could imagine being without her." He smirked conspiratorially at Lawrence. "She would hate for me to say it in public, but I couldn't love her more if she were my own flesh and blood."

The reporter grimaced a little; after that heartfelt confession, he felt bad about asking his next question. "Speaking of fathers… James Potter. Did he know about his daughter, and if not, why did you keep it a secret from him?"

"No, or at least we don't think he did. We certainly didn't tell him," Malfoy said hesitantly. "As for  _why_ … Initially, it was to keep her safe."

"You thought he would hurt her? His own child?" he demanded in disbelief.

She shrugged her shoulders. "Honestly, we weren't sure. The Potters were very close friends with the Longbottoms, and during my sister's trial, he was one of the main people pushing for the Dementor's Kiss. I quite clearly remember him saying that the Lestranges'  _'_ _whole vile line_ _'_  should be  _'_ _stamped out_ _'_. Jen is not a true Lestrange, and in hindsight I doubt he would have included her in that blanket statement had he known she was alive, but neither Arcturus nor I felt comfortable risking an innocent girl's life on a  _maybe_. When Arcturus passed…" Malfoy laughed sadly. "I admit, I was selfish. I didn't want to give him the opportunity to take my niece away from me. He and my husband have never gotten along, and I was afraid he would be awarded full custody and then forbid me from ever seeing her again."

_Okay, not the_ _**right** _ _thing for her to do, necessarily, but I can_ _'_ _t exactly blame her for doing it the way she did. If I had to take care of my nephew from the time he was little and then risked losing him entirely, I might do the same thing._

The purple-haired witch with the cat muttered something to the only wizard Lawrence had yet to be introduced to, probably her father given their similar facial features, and left the room. A few seconds later, she returned with a teenage girl just a couple of steps behind her. "I apologize for my lateness," the newcomer said, taking a seat on the couch at Lord Black's right side. "I needed some time to compose myself."

"Miss Black, I presume," he said, giving her a small smile.

"You presume correctly."

"I've already talked to the rest of your family about the highlights of your life, but there are a few things I need to ask you about directly," he explained gently, planning a few easy questions to lob at her. The last thing he wanted to do was upset her the way Rita had that morning. "First, a belated congratulations on winning the Triwizard Tournament. Now that you've had a couple of months to get used to it, how do you think that victory will affect you at school, especially being known as a dragon slayer?"

"I expect that will not be the first thing the other students think of when they next see me." She smiled slightly as he prepared to apologize again and continued, "In all honesty, though, I doubt it will make much of a change. Just don't call me the next time a dragon's spotted where it's not supposed to be."

He laughed lightly at her joke; it might be a bit weak, but anything to put her more at ease was a good thing. "In that same vein, after everything was done some people mentioned that you had been seen a few times in the company of Viktor Krum. Anything you want to share about that?"

That caught her off-guard, and she took a moment before answering. "Viktor and I got to know each other following the wandless duel, when we put each other in the infirmary. He is an honorable wizard and a respected opponent, and I am quite happy to count him as a friend."

"And rumors that you two might be  _more_  than just friends?" he pressed.

"As I said, he is a gentleman, and he knew that I was only fourteen. He would never pursue romance with me under those circumstances."

"Did you want him to?"

She smiled sweetly. "No comment."

"Fair enough," he replied, grinning a tiny bit at the non-answer.  _So she had a crush on him, hmm? Just like teenage girls everywhere._  "During the Tournament, you faced off a few times with your half-brother, Danny Potter, and you did not seem to hold anything back. I'm guessing you two don't exactly get along at Hogwarts?"

"I don't know him on a personal basis; we travel in very different social circles," she explained. "As for our confrontations in the Tournament, I did not hold back against any of the other competitors. That our matches all ended massively in my favor has more to do with our respective skills at dueling than anything else."

He nodded and prepared his final question. "Last question. Your half-brother and father have finally learned of your existence. Is there anything you'd like them to know now?"

"Just one thing." She squared her shoulders and gave him an intense look that made him want to squirm in his seat. "I am well aware that both of them, along with Lady Lily Potter, have built a life that does not include me. I do not begrudge them this; there was no reason for them to leave space for someone they had never heard of. All I ask is that they not go out of their way to try to bring me into the fold now. I would not want to disrupt their lives any more than this morning's news already has." She smiled, spreading her arms to indicate the rest of her family. "Besides, I am a Black,  _t_ _his_  is my family, and honestly, I am perfectly happy with the way things are."

* * *

**Voldemort, no! You are** _**not** _ **allowed to portray yourself as a sympathetic character. Someone please get this man some Rogaine so he** **'** **ll shut up!**

**In all honesty, though, I do like getting peeks into villains' heads. Maybe it's just me, but seeing how they think makes them more human, and all the scarier for it.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	10. Positions of Authority

**SixPerfections:**  I'm unsure if Jen and Lily will have a happy ending, honestly. Every time I think I've made a decision about it, my muse nudges me down the other road. As for how far ahead I have the story planned, my notes cover most of the rest of this year and some of the more important scenes for the next; summer of '96 is pretty much set except for the little things that always pop up closer to the time of actual writing. Seventh year is what's giving me ulcers because 1) I'll have turned canon on its head so much that the book is absolutely useless (as if it weren't already!), and 2) I can't figure out how to pump it up after Jen's – dare I say it? –  _epic_  sixth year.

 **Brian1972:**  The Blacks didn't use Jen being blind as an excuse for her not attending Hogwarts primarily because Jen does  _not_  want everyone and their grandmother to know that she was disabled. Only a few people knew, and now that she can see again, it's a moot point.

 **sleath56:**  Thank you very much for your perspective on the matter of a Jen/Lily resolution; as I thankfully do not have personal experience with this issue, an informed view is appreciated. As I told SixPerfections, I am still undecided on this subject, but to address one of your concerns, when I talk about a "resolution", I am  _not_  implying that Jen would treat Lily as her mother and put aside everything that happened prior. I mean instead that she would no longer hate Lily as much as she does now and that they would begin building a relationship where they view each other as equals.

**Funny story; my computer apparently thought this past weekend was a** _**perfect** _ **time to crash on me, and yes, that's with exams looming in my none too distant future.** _**Joy** _ **. I finally managed to get everything repaired – obviously, or I wouldn't be posting this right now – but you'll have to excuse me if the chapter is a little short as a result.**

**That said, my muse decided to start us off this time with something a little more… light-hearted than normal.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did Dumbledore always have trouble finding a teacher for the DADA post, even having Umbridge forced on him in book 5, even though it is explicitly stated that Snape  _desperately_  wanted the job? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 10  
** **Positions of Authority**

Filius was jolted from his wandering thoughts as he noticed someone else hurrying down the stone corridor leading to the teachers' lounge. "Cutting it close, aren't you, Minerva?"

"As if you're one to talk," the Scotswoman rejoined jokingly, slowing so that he might catch up. "At least  _I_ was busy doing something productive, no matter how irritating parchmentwork is. What have you been up to this morning?"

"Stress relief." The witch nodded, knowing that he often spent long periods in the unofficial dueling hall during the summer and winter holidays to both keep his skills rust-free and work out any leftover frustration built up from dealing with intentionally obtuse students. Of course, today's practice was all caused by one person in particular.

The cat Animagus agreed, "The  _Prophet_  articles a few days ago were quite… surprising. I'm tempted to head to the Blacks' estate and get some answers myself, but while Sirius was one of my students—"

"Miss Black is a Ravenclaw, yes, I am full aware." He smiled weakly at his colleague. "As a matter of fact, I visited her the very day their response was published. The world at large may be fooled, but  _we_  know she was originally Lily's child."

" _'Originally_ _'_ _?_ _"_  Minerva repeated in confusion. "You mean that  _wasn_ _'_ _t_  just a heap of lies?"

"Apparently some of my distant cousins earned a nice bit of gold last summer," he answered in a cool tone. Full-blooded goblins'…  _distaste_  for him, and his for them in return, was well known to the other members of staff. So great was their enmity that rather than depositing his pay in a vault, he insisted Albus parcel out his gold in one lump sum at the beginning of the school year, just after the tuition fees were collected. He had had too many paychecks from when he was a professional duelist  _disappear_  on their way to his account.

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

"She underwent a blood adoption at Gringotts to replace Lily's traits with Lestrange's, and almost certainly paid a tidy sum more to keep them all quiet about it. When I asked her why, she said that it was to more securely cement her place in the line of succession."

"…I suppose it could be worse," the woman finally allowed. "At least she wasn't doing it just to spite Lily. While I don't approve of what she did to her daughter, and Miss Black is well within her rights to hold a grudge, taking a Death Eater as a replacement mother would have been a  _wee_  bit more revenge than I could comfortably condone."

He nodded in agreement with that; he had enjoyed having both young women as students, and despite his own disappointment with Lily's actions post-graduation, he found that he still had a bit of a soft spot for her. Her daughter, in her own way, was much the same.

The door to the teachers' lounge opened at their approach. From inside, Filius heard Severus's snarl. "I offered to take the position this year, just as I have for the  _past thirteen_ , but you said no, you had it under control. And you chose  _him_?! I won't stand for this!"

The pair of professors shared a wary glance before entering. "Dare I ask what that was about?"

The potions master glared at them for a moment, his gaze barely lightening even though they were not the source of his rage. "Albus, in his  _infinite_  wisdom, has decided to hire  _James bloody Potter_  as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor."

 _Oh, joy_ , Filius thought sarcastically, already seeing how things would surely play out in the near future.  _This year is going to be_ _ **fun**_ _._

"Dear Merlin, Albus, what were you thinking?" Minerva demanded.

The white-haired wizard blinked in surprise at that response. "Whatever do you mean, Minerva? I thought you'd be happy to have one of your former Lions return for a year."

"I would be, except now I'm going to spend the next ten months making sure one or both of them don't wind up  _dead at the other's hand_."

"Now, surely it would not be that bad—"

"Want to bet?" hissed Severus.

"—if for no other reason that I expect them to act with the maturity appropriate for their ages," Albus finished with a stern glare at the head of Slytherin house.

Severus met the headmaster's eyes without a hint of discomfort. "I'm seriously considering handing you my resignation here and now and forcing you to find a new Potions professor in the next week and a half. How's  _that_  for maturity?"

"Eighteen years is  _far_  too long to maintain a schoolboy grudge," Albus rebuked.

"He  _attacked_  me not a month ago!"

Filius raised a brow at that declaration; neither Albus nor Minerva seemed surprised, though Pomona, sitting in the corner, was as much in the dark as he. "I must say, this is the first time I have heard of this. Under what circumstances did such an altercation occur?"

The three shifted nervously, and he had to fight hard to keep his eyes from rolling. It must have had something to do with their precious  _'Order'_ , then. He was not sure  _exactly_  what the purpose of their organization was, but he had his guesses. After all, only a fool would miss the fact that it had been extremely active during the War, went dormant when You-Know-Who was defeated, and returned immediately after Miss Black reported the news of an unknown dark wizard who claimed to be You-Know-Who resurrected.

"It was just a misunderstanding that got out of hand," Albus temporized, giving the Charms professor a brief glance before returning his attention to Severus. "I will have words with him –  _strong words_ ," he added at the younger wizard's glare, "but for your part, I hope that you would be willing to  _at least_  not instigate any conflicts between the two of you."

Severus crossed his arms and settled in his chair. "Very well. I won't  _start_  anything, but you can be  _damn_ sure that I'll finish it. I will not roll over and grovel to maintain Potter's excessively inflated sense of self-importance, nor will I allow him to bully any of my Snakes as he did when we were students."

"That… is an acceptable compromise, I suppose." The headmaster sat and gestured for the two last heads of house to take their own seats. "Aside from our new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, are there any other issues we need to handle before we get to the purpose of this meeting?"

The other members of staff looked at each other and shook their heads.

"Very well. Pomona, who are your choices for our newest prefects?"

Shrugging, the slightly dumpy woman replied, "Ernie Macmillan for the boys, and while it was close, the girls will be represented by Hannah Abbott. I considered Miss Bones – she certainly bloomed over the course of last year – but I fear she could well regress should I place that duty on her."

"Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson." The uproar that announcement created caused Severus to reel back in surprise.

"That is  _completely_  unacceptable," Minerva snapped. "You said you would not tolerate bullies only a minute ago, but while Mr. Malfoy has been too clever to be caught, it is very clear that the other students at least  _believe_  that he is one. And I  _know_  that Miss Parkinson has harassed her fellows considering I've seen her do it and punished her for it multiple times. Whatever could have  _possibly_  convinced you to pick them?"

"It's not like I have much of a choice this year!"

Tapping his sharp fingernails on the table to call their attention to him, Filius asked, "What do you mean by that?"

"Let's look at the fifth-year Slytherins, shall we? We all know we can count Misters Crabbe and Goyle right out; honestly, I'm shocked they managed to progress as far as they have. Mr. Nott? How many detentions has  _he_  served for bullying Muggleborns? Perhaps Mr. Zabini could have been an option, but with his unfortunate demise last year, the only boy I could possibly choose is Mr. Malfoy.

"For the girls, Miss Moon is too shy and quiet for any kind of authority, and Miss Bulstrode is not exactly the sharpest girl. I shudder to think how Miss Greengrass would behave should I give her the position." The other staff nodded; the blonde Pureblood could be described as  _'flighty'_  were one feeling especially generous. She was intelligent, but her primary interest lay in choosing her next boyfriend of the week rather than academics. "As with the boys, I am left with Miss Parkinson, despite how loath I am to give the badge to her."

"What about Miss Davis? You neglected to mention her in your summary," Pomona noted.

Severus sighed. "She is the most responsible of the fifth-year girls, I agree, and like you said about Miss Bones, she truly came out of her shell recently. Unfortunately, she would face the same hurdle I would have had Slughorn selected me for the position. In the Snake Pit, no one is going to listen to a half-blood prefect. At best, I would be setting her up to be ignored."

"And at worst?" Filius prompted.

"…Do you remember Paul Edgecombe?"

The quarter-goblin winced, as did the others in the room. Edgecombe had been a Slytherin prefect only a few years older than Severus. In early November of his fifth year, he had gone missing for a full day and was ultimately found unconscious at the foot of a stairwell in a less-traveled wing of the castle. Pomfrey had had quite a difficult time dispelling all the hexes inflicted upon him. No one ever confessed to the attack, and almost immediately after his awakening, the boy had turned in his badge. He chose to be tutored at home for his final two years of schooling.

"As you can guess, I would much rather spare Miss Davis from suffering a similar fate."

"Understandable," murmured Albus. "Minerva, how about you?"

"My choices are obvious. Danny Potter and Hermione Granger."

The professors all nodded, so it was a shock when Albus frowned and asked, "Are you sure Mr. Potter is the  _best_  choice?"

"What are you talking about, Albus? How could he not be? A Special Award for Services to the School for slaying Slytherin's basilisk, the other Lions adore him for his Quidditch talent, and then there's the Triwizard Tournament to consider."

"I  _am_  considering the Tournament, specifically that he did not enter himself and yet was forced to compete," the headmaster replied. "Not to mention, his showing was not exactly stellar. If we add in the fact that he only recently discovered he has a sister, one I think we are all aware he did not build the best of relationships with last year, I believe Mr. Potter already has quite enough on his plate as it is. Asking him to shoulder yet  _another_  burden is too much."

Minerva blinked rapidly at that reasoning. Finally finding her voice, she said, "Those are good points, but we also must keep in mind that passing him over could also impact his emotional well-being."

"Yes, please let us keep stroking the brat's ego," snarked Severus.

Albus shrugged helplessly. "The choice is ultimately yours, of course, but I maintain that giving him the position, even if he expects it, could do more harm than good."

"…Perhaps you're right," she agreed at last. "Neville Longbottom, then."

"Er, Minerva? I don't think giving Mr. Longbottom any authority over the daughter of Bellatrix Lestrange is exactly a good idea," Pomona offered tentatively.

"Mr. Weasley, then! Does anyone  _else_  have input they would like to offer?!"

Filius was tempted to point out the redhead's poor marks and general lackadaisical attitude, but decided against it upon seeing the wild look in the Scotswoman's eyes. The mental image of her covering her face in blue woad and chasing them all out of the room with a giant claymore flashed in front of him, and he fought down a giggle. Now was  _not_  the time to test her temper.

"Mr. Weasley it is, then. I'm sure Miss Granger will be able to keep him in line just fine," Albus said in a conciliatory voice. "Filius, I recall you saying the now sixth- and seventh-years you chose as prefects after the winter holidays last year were only temporary. Have you changed your mind on that, or are you giving the badges to others?"

He thought for a few moments before answering. "I do believe I will leave them in their positions for the moment. They were fairly effective last term, though I will still be keeping a closer eye on my house for the foreseeable future."

"Very well. And for the fifth-years?"

"Ah, that is easy," he said with a grin. "Anthony Goldstein and Jennifer Black."

For the second time, the eldest of their quintet offered his opinion, though this time it was accompanied with a grimace. "Perhaps someone other than Miss Black should have that position."

"Oh? And on just what do you base this opinion?"

"Well, she's only been a student here for a single year, and not a typical one, for that matter." The headmaster's smooth answer was not persuasive; though Filius did not believe Albus had it out for Miss Black as Rita Skeeter had implied, he  _had_  noticed a slight bias against her. He was also well aware that the other wizard had maintained a close relationship with the Potters over the years. Albus likely knew Miss Black's true parentage and might be subconsciously holding her choice to stay with the Blacks against her. "Then we must keep in mind that I expect quite a few students will be reluctant to obey the daughter of an insane terrorist—"

"Yet you had no complaints against Mr. Malfoy nor Miss Parkinson, both of whose fathers were Death Eaters. They may have been acquitted, but it is obvious that they were just as culpable."

"But that's just it; they were  _acquitted_. The Lestranges were found guilty and sentenced to life in Azkaban. There is a profound difference there."

"Regardless, I have full faith in Miss Black's ability to pull through the controversy and be an effective authority figure." The Charms professor gave the room a fierce smile. "Besides, she has already proven that she will not tolerate anyone mistreating the younger years. Granting her the prefect's badge would give her the ability to stop any bullying  _without_  resorting to hurling lightning bolts around."

His boss raised a finger. "But do you  _want_  a prefect who has shown that her first recourse is violence?"

"Albus, when I heard what had been going on, I was quite tempted to toss in a few curses of my own," he admitted freely. "As such, it would be hypocritical to hold that against her."

"You would be hard-pressed to find someone who could do the job better," interjected Severus. "If I were in Filius's shoes, she would be my pick, as well."

"Oho, is that  _approval_  I hear?" Pomona teased.

The normally dour man was quiet for a second before commenting slowly, "You did not hear this from me, but someone  _might_  have had a pointed conversation with the Sorting Hat about not sending the next true Slytherin it meets to the Ravens' Nest."

 _Was that a_ _ **joke**_ _?_ , Filius wondered with a small grin. His colleague was rarely so personable. "Keep your hands off her, Severus. That girl's  _mine_."

"So you're maintaining her as your choice?" Albus cut in, draining the joviality from their conversation.

He met the other wizard's gaze squarely and nodded. "Yes, I am. You're not going to deny me this."

"If you insist. As for the Head Boy and Girl…" The white-bearded man trailed off and asked gently, "Pomona? Is something the matter?"

"No! Not at all." The head of Hufflepuff house continued her excited bouncing, looking more like a four-year-old on a sugar high than a witch of seventy-three years. "Please, go on."

Albus eyed her a moment longer. "If you're sure. The Head Girl will be Viola Pucey of Slytherin, and the Head Boy… Pomona, are you  _sure_  you don't need to visit the lavatory?"

"Just get on with it," Severus interrupted. "She'll be like that until you say that her pretty boy got the badge."

"…And the Head Boy is Cedric Diggory, yes.  _Must_  you take all the fun out of everything?"

"Ask the students. I'm sure they'll tell you just what a cruel, self-absorbed arse I am; I do believe some first-year Hufflepuffs have even called me a  _'fun-sucking vampire'_  before. Without them around, you're the only source of foolishness I have left to feed on."

Minerva eyed the head of Slytherin suspiciously. "Severus, by any chance were you brewing a potion with intoxicating fumes and not using proper ventilation spells?"

"No, of course not." The woman kept up her gaze, and the man relented, "I was  _going_  to cast them, but Skelegrow weakens greatly should it have other forms of active magic nearby during the second stewing period. It was a choice between efficacy and comfort."

"Right. To Poppy with you. Shoo!" She shook her head as the wizard left. "What am I going to do about that man?"

Filius bit his lip to keep from laughing. "I don't know. Maybe we need to stage an intervention for all the staff?"

" _All_  the staff? Why would we need that?"

"Don't think I haven't noticed the catnip you keep in your desk," he remarked in a nonchalant tone, and the witch's cheeks flushed bright red. "Let's also not forget that Poppy is alone all day with powerful painkillers, we have no idea what exactly Pomona grows in her greenhouses, and lemon drops are not supposed to be actually addicting, so clearly Albus is lacing them with  _something_."

"You  _do_  realize we are both still here, yes?" said wizard asked with a raised brow, the Herbology professor giving them a baleful glare.

He and Minerva shared a quick look before they started laughing.

"I'll take that as a yes."

* * *

Cornelius grumpily set down his quill at the knock on his door. "This had better be bloody important!"

The offending slab of oak opened at his shout, and his undersecretary entered while carrying a sheet of parchment. "Is this a bad time?" she asked as she nonetheless made her way to his desk.

"That's one way to put it, Dolores." He waved an impatient hand at the stack of reports he had been perusing. "Weasley is asking for more money –  _again_ – so he can study Muggle  _'fellytones'_  or whatever, Engels is buggering up Magical Cooperation even more than Crouch's death did, Croaker is still refusing to submit detailed reports about what the Unspeakables are working on, and Cresswell is dragging his feet on getting us out of liability for Ludo's gambling debts with the goblins. Merlin, is Bones the only Department Head who has any idea what she's actually doing?!"

"Well, I have something that might just cheer you up." The short, squat woman – less generous individuals might compare her to a toad, and despite how much Cornelius relied on her to get things done around the Ministry, he could not exactly  _deny_  that those people had a point – handed him the form she had been holding. "I just got through wrangling with the DME—"

"Don't even talk to me about those people," he shot back, dropping the parchment on his desk. He was  _not_ in a good mood with the Department of Magical Education at the moment. They had been given  _one_ task to complete this summer: find a way to get one of his people into Hogwarts, someone who was not drinking from Dumbledore's metaphorical teat and could therefore look at the school with an unbiased eye. He thought their most recent Educational Decree had been the way to go considering the old man's chronic inability to find fools willing to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, but to his utter frustration, Dumbledore had convinced James Potter to take the post.

He had considered protesting that decision, citing the younger wizard's lack of a Mastery in the subject, but he knew going after Potter was ultimately a bad idea. The man's son was the Boy-Who-Lived, after all, and the public would not approve of him going after the father of their hero. Were that not enough, Cornelius was not nobility; Potter  _was_ , and should the Wizengamot be forced to choose between the Minister they had elected or one of their own members, he knew he might as well clean out his office right then.

"Now, Cornelius, I know they dropped the ball recently," Dolores simpered, "but that just means they were even more motivated to make up for it this time. Take a look."

Rolling his eyes, he gave the parchment a quick glance. His eyebrows rose as he took in the wording, and when he was done, a huff of disgust escaped him. " _This_  is supposed to help? How, pray tell?" He read from the end of the sheet, " _'Therefore, it is the decision of the Committee for Educational Effectiveness that all professors must be capable of fulfilling the duties of their position without outside assistance in order to maintain their post, including but not limited to lecturing, grading assignments, and administering discipline. In the event that any member of faculty is unable to comply with this Decree, the headmaster or headmistress has one week or until the beginning of the next term, whichever period is shorter, to procure a replacement. Should he or she fail to do so, Educational Decree 22 will come into effect.'_  Yes, this  _sounds_  like a threat, but we all know it's a bunch of twaddle. Dumbledore may be cracked, but he wouldn't pick a teacher who couldn't even do their job."

"Wouldn't he?" the undersecretary asked in a sweet tone. "After all, he's already done so."

"Explain."

The witch's broad grin grew sharp. "Why, Cuthbert Binns, of course. He's a ghost, and while it is true that he can lecture, if you want to call it that, he can't pick anything up. That means he can't grade assignments without someone else's help."

Cornelius blinked rapidly at that. Could it be that simple?

"If that's not enough, Binns couldn't recall anyone's name when I was in school, and I doubt that has changed in the intervening years. That means he's unlikely to be able to administer discipline effectively, which is yet  _another_  violation of this Decree." She laughed gaily. "It's marvelous, isn't it? On the surface it seems so innocuous and obvious, but that just means that Dumbledore will have an even harder time fighting it."

"And it says that he only has to the beginning of the following term to comply if that's less than a week away," Cornelius muttered with growing approval. "Today's the thirtieth. If we released it tomorrow afternoon, he would only have a few hours to find a replacement, maybe a little more if he could make a convincing argument that the school year officially begins once the students arrive. Even then, he wouldn't be able to find anyone in such a brief timeframe."

"Exactly! If we have someone already picked out on our end, she could be in place in short order."

"Excellent work, Dolores! I'll send a note to the DME and—" He paused when he noticed her twitch. "Is there something wrong with what I just said?"

"Not  _wrong_ , exactly, just… Well, I kind of hoped you would be willing to send  _me_  for this task," she explained.

The wizard stared at her. "Dolores, why would I  _ever_ agree to that proposal? You're my undersecretary, my right-hand witch. You  _know_  the level of incompetence I have to deal with on a daily basis. How would I get anything done around here without you to ride herd on these people?"

"I understand, Minister," she sighed with her head down, and he rolled his eyes. He always felt like an overly stern parent punishing a child when she did that, and worse, she knew it. He had lost count of the number of times she had used that strategy to get what she wanted. "I just thought, since this was so important to you, that you would want someone you were sure you could trust up there."

"Fine, fine. If you want it so badly, you can go to Hogwarts for this." She let out a girlish squeal of glee. " _But!_  It'll be up to you to find a replacement for your duties here, and you need to go to the DME so they can arrange lessons for you. I will not put you in that castle and then have you sent back to me a week later because you are an even worse teacher than Binns is. That is a victory I refuse to give to Dumbledore."

She beamed. "I actually already put together a lesson plan and had the DME go over it. It's all approved."

Cornelius blinked at that. How long had she been planning this?

"One thing I will need to know, Cornelius, is just what this is all about. I know he's a meddling old man, but you've never gone after him like this before."

 _I wonder how much she's been wanting to ask_ _ **that**_ , he thought. "The answer is quite simple. It's because Dumbledore's become dangerous, to himself and others."

"Dangerous?" Dolores repeated slowly.

"Yes. We all know how  _eccentric_  he's known to be, but this summer has proven that it isn't him just getting a little funny in his old age. He is legitimately senile." Cornelius sighed. "I mean, look at how he took the news of this new dark wizard we were told about. Just because someone  _claims_  to be You-Know-Who back from the grave doesn't mean he actually  _is_. Then, wanting to pull the Dementors out from Azkaban? If they're content on their barren rock, I say we leave them there and keep them away from the rest of us. He is so invested in the idea that he'll have another chance to shine that he's trying to gear us up for war! How will the other countries respond to that?!

"No, Albus Dumbledore was a great leader in his day, but that time is over," he concluded. "He has always placed the majority of his pride in being headmaster of Hogwarts. If I can convince him that he has failed  _there_ , then he may accept forced retirement more easily. We remove a destabilizing element, the public isn't stirred up with one of their heroes being dragged through the mud, and he gets to spend the last years of his life in peace and quiet rather than seeing monsters hiding behind every shadow. Everybody wins."

"So the plan for the High Inquisitor position is still on?" the woman asked with a greedy expression on her wide face.

He sighed. "Yes, since I'm sending you to Hogwarts, I'll make you the High Inquisitor. Not immediately, though; wait a week or two before you start rocking the boat. The last thing we need to do is give Dumbledore any hint of our trap before we spring it."

"Of course, Cornelius. Just tell me what you want me to do."

* * *

**The prefects (with the exception of Jen) are the same as canon, I know, but she's only been making waves for one year. Those ripples aren't exactly large or far-reaching enough to change impressions made over the previous three.**

**And no, I don't know why my muse decided Snape needed to be buzzed off potion fumes. I think she was drawing from a memory of my high school zoology teacher, who had a bad habit of sniffing ammonia whenever we were dissecting. Considering the other people in that class, however, I can't exactly** _**blame** _ **her for wanting some chemical happy time.**

**There was something else… Oh, yes. The idea for Umbridge becoming the History professor rather than teach DADA came from** _**Harry Potter: Junior Inquisitor** _ **by sprinter1988. A very good story, but not for fans of Snape, Dumbledore, or** _**any** _ **of the Order, really.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	11. Train Rides and Train Wrecks

**Crossoverpairinglover:**  Why do people think I hate everyone except Harry, Hermione, and Luna?! The  _only_ characters I truly despise are Dumbledore, Snape, the Malfoys, Ron, Molly, and Umbridge. Most of the others I don't really have an opinion about one way or the other.

 **Apparuerit, bissek, U-233:**  McGonagall passed over Neville because Sprout made an important point. At least in this story, and I think in canon as well to some degree, the Longbottoms  _very much_  hate the Blacks and Lestranges, and I have a hard time believing that in a population as small as theirs that such a deep grudge would go unnoticed. Jen hasn't shown any such attitude towards Neville, so placing her in a position of authority over him wouldn't invite any abuse of power.

**I'm kind of…** _**meh** _ **about this whole chapter. It went where I wanted it to go, but not necessarily** _**well** _ **.**

**Disclaimer:**  After discovering that Snape owed him a life debt because of James's actions, did Harry do any research to find out just what that meant for him? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 11  
** **Train Rides and Train Wrecks**

_Hmm. I shouldn't have expected anything different, I suppose_ , Jen thought as she, Sirius, and Cissy exited the Floo terminals tucked along one side of Platform 9¾ and made their way into the mob of teenagers and family crowded around the Hogwarts Express. There were enough people mashed together that she was not the center of  _everyone's_  attention, but nearly all the witches and wizards the trio passed paused in their conversations to watch them. Watch  _her_.

The family had gone over many,  _many_  plans for what to do today, all dependent on what the public reaction to her revealed 'history' was; while a few were based on a generally positive outcome, there were several more that involved the populace viewing her with suspicion, distrust, or even outright hatred. The chance of violence was low, the younger of her aunts had assured them, but she knew  _low_  was not the same as  _nothing_.

Thankfully, it was Andi's prediction that had come to pass. The predominant emotion felt and expressed by the crowd was surprise mixed with confusion, though more than a few felt some fear, as well.

Sirius led the two women through the masses, the public recognizing him as a lord doing as much to create a path for them as his body did. Once they were next to the scarlet train – Jen had to blink a few times at the overbearing color and for the first time that summer wished she was still blind – the wizard turned to her and erected a small silencing charm around them. "This is as far as we can go. Once you get on that train, you're pretty much on your own. Are you ready for this?"

"Would it matter if I weren't?" she asked rhetorically. "It isn't like we can go back in time two weeks and intercept Skeeter's article. Speaking of which…"

"You have other things to worry about than that. Leave dealing with the  _Prophet_  to me."

She hesitated at that command; Elsie had taught her long ago that where revenge was concerned, the maxim about doing it oneself was very true. Her momentary delay caused a worried look to form on Sirius's face, however, and she nodded. Best she not make a scene here. "As you wish. Besides, it's not like this was happening last year when I didn't know anybody. None of my friends indicated they would distance themselves from me – quite the opposite, really – and let's not forget that I have at least one supporter on the staff." She tapped the small silver badge pinned to the front of her school robes; the letter that had come with it mentioned that all prefects would have a meeting immediately after they left the station, so it would behoove them to dress appropriately beforehand. "I highly doubt that Flitwick would give me this responsibility just to sit back and watch me fail."

Her Head of House shrugged his shoulders. "Good point. Just… be careful, all right? If a bunch of kids gang up on you because of the adoption, just get out of there. Don't do anything stupidly heroic."

"Of course not. That's your job," she answered with a sharp smile. When he frowned at her, she sighed. "Fine. I promise that, should I get into a situation I can't handle, I'll put my safety first. Happy?"

_Not that it matters. Between wandless casting, dark magic, and Voodoo, me finding anything that I_ _**can** _ _**'** _ _**t** _ _handle means we have bigger problems._

"More than I was, less than I want to be." Ignoring the witnesses around them, he pulled her into a tight hug. "And make sure you send more letters this year."

"Sirius, I came back to London practically every other weekend. You don't  _need_  me to write letters." She extricated herself out of his embrace and turned to her aunt. "Any last-minute advice  _you_  wish to give?"

Shaking her head, Cissy replied, "Not really. You're a thinker and have a decent knowledge of politics for a fifteen-year-old; I believe I can trust you not to make any massive blunders without me there to hold your hand. Just make sure you keep our family motto in mind."

"Which one? There are so many we've come up with over the centuries.  _'_ _Toujours pur'_?  _'_ _Familia primum, familia semper'_?" Jen asked with a slight grin. Some families collected titles, others trophies or stories. Theirs recorded various pearls of wisdom to share with future generations.

"No, something a little more recent.  _'_ _No one crosses a Black thrice_ _'_."

 _Ah, one of the_ _ **fun**_ _mottos. If someone gets in your way, make_ _ **exceptionally**_ _sure they understand why they shouldn't do it again, and should they_ _ **still**_ _not learn their lesson, get rid of them discretely so they can't do it a third time._  She snickered. "But auntie, you know there aren't any good spots to hide a body in Hogwarts. We've already filled them all up."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "I  _knew_  letting you two spend time together was a terrible idea. Jen, no killing anyone. Cissy, no giving her any ideas."

"How else am I supposed to entertain myself all year, then?" Jen complained jokingly.

"And that's quite enough out of you." A flick of his wand dispelled the charm around them. "Get on the train; it's almost time to go."

"Send word as soon as you have the other Ravens quavering in front of you," added the older witch.

She sighed. "You're  _both_  incorrigible." Giving her aunt a quick hug as well, she grabbed her floating trunk in her right hand to make it look it had been one of the adults controlling it rather than her and slipped inside the train.

 _Now, where could they be?_ , the teen asked herself. Susan had mentioned getting to the platform early with her Auror guard and saving them all seats, but exactly  _where_  the girl would be was less than completely clear. Quickly checking for anyone walking up, she opened her left hand to reveal the needle she had picked up at Grimmauld Place before leaving. It spun in a circle a few times, then the spell previously laid upon it detected its target. The tip of the needle pointed to her left, towards the back of the train.

"Good." She pocketed her little toy. The locator spell on it would fade soon enough, but she had supplied it with sufficient power for it to last until she found whom she was looking for. Pushing her way through the narrow corridors of three carriages, she smiled when she spotted another girl leaning nonchalantly against one wall. "Waiting for someone, Tracey?"

Her best friend smirked and glanced pointedly at her chest. "Why, yes, I am. I thought you were her for a moment, but the girl I'm expecting is a rebel who electrocutes annoying twats who look at her wrong and takes out seventh-years in pitched duels. No one in their right mind would ever make  _her_  a prefect."

"I've heard Flitwick called many things; oddly,  _'sane'_ was never one of them," she laughed. "Where's our compartment?"

"We'll go in a minute. There's something important I need to talk to you about first."

 _Ah, of course._  "The  _Prophet_  articles." It wasn't a question.

"Yep." Tracey shrugged and continued, "The others won't have as much of an issue; you were always close-lipped about the identity of your mother.  _I_ , however, remember you saying that you were born a Potter—"

A snap of her fingers to weave a Notice-Me-Not charm around them interrupted the Slytherin. "A  _little_ discretion, if you please. Having to modify someone's memory before we even leave the platform would be a  _very_  bad start to this year."

"You know that spell?" the other brunette asked in surprise. At Jen's unrelenting glare, she shrugged. "Of course you would. And you know as well as I do that there's no one in earshot."

" _Regardless_ …" She took a slow breath to calm herself. "The short version, then: paid the goblins a small fortune last summer to perform a blood adoption, kept it to ourselves because no one needed to know, the Potters got a nasty surprise, Rita's living on borrowed time. Anything  _else_  you desperately need to know right now?"

Tracey thought for a moment, either oblivious to or – more likely – intentionally ignoring her building temper. "No, I think that's it. I'll let you know if something else comes to mind." Waving Jen to follow her, the younger girl led the way into the carriage behind her.

The heiress of House Black stopped outside the compartment to peer inside at the people she knew but, with few exceptions, had never seen. A dark-haired boy whose magical core she recognized as Justin Finch-Fletchley's sat on one bench beside Susan Bones, Hufflepuffs both; next to them was another redheaded girl, Morag MacDougal. The other set of seats held the tousled blond Kenneth Towler, the lone seventh-year and Gryffindor of her little 'court'. To his sides were two more Ravenclaws: Padma Patil, the only Indian in the group, sat to his right while laughing at something Susan had just said, and on his left and closest to the door was Luna. The blonde turned to the window, smiling and waving upon noticing her standing there.

She slid the door open, garnering their attention. "And how was everyone's summer?"

"Jen!" her Scottish housemate exclaimed, slipping by the Badgers to hug her briefly. "We were worried that we wouldn't see you! What with… you know," the girl finished weakly.

Shaking her head at the girl's hesitance, she hoisted her trunk to fit in the overhead rack, and Luna quickly pushed Kenneth along the bench to give her just enough space to sit. The youngest Raven then blushed faintly when Jen's leg pressed firmly against her own. Once she was situated and the six of her friends not in the know about her original parentage were staring at her unashamedly, she commented, "Yes, we did not expect Skeeter to be such a nosy little sneak. Our plan was to release the news in a more…  _controlled_ manner."

"Doesn't surprise me," Luna muttered. "Daddy hates her, has ever since she wrote a nasty piece about Mum right after she died."

" _No_ _one_  likes Skeeter. She just has a talent for keeping out of the way until the firestorms started by her articles calm down," Kenneth replied with a sad glance at the little blonde. "And no offense, Jen, but revealing that you're Lestrange's daughter wasn't going to go down well no matter  _how_  you went about it.

"Perhaps you're right." She sighed. "Oh well, it's of no matter now. What's done is done."

Susan cleared her throat nervously and asked, "Speaking of news articles, I couldn't help but notice that your family's interview with the  _Daily Prophet_ about your childhood and what  _you_  told us were rather different—"

" _Of course_  they were different," she rejoined with a roll of her eyes. "I'm not going to tell the whole world that the Muggle family whose care my mother left me in actually abandoned me in London, now am I? Saying they gave me up to Aunt Cissy implies a bad enough situation as it is."

"So, what  _actually_  happened back then?" Padma asked. "I mean, you gave us the bare bones last year, but that isn't enough to explain why you were so close to your aunts after only a single summer. If I didn't already know better, I'd think what the  _Prophet_ reported was what actually happened."

Jen smirked. "Good, I'd hate to think our cover story wasn't effective." Her sharp smile faded a bit as she weighed just how much of the truth to reveal. "You want some more detail, though? I suppose that's fair. The witch who saved me when I was little was named Elspeth, not Elizabeth, and for several years she taught me the ins and outs of folk healing. That was her job, you see, and a goodly number of people who were too poor to afford the fees to be treated at St. Mungo's, or who desired a salve or potion and wanted it made  _discretely_ , came to her for her services. That's actually how I first met Aunt Cissy; she was a frequent client of Elsie's, and though at the time neither of us knew about our relation, she was always exceptionally kind to me. Some of that may have been that Elsie wasn't exactly in good health herself and could pass her work on to me sooner than expected, but I like to think it was because she genuinely enjoyed spending those occasional half-hours with me." Recalling something the piebald witch had said the previous year, she added, "In fact, a few times she commented that she wished she had a daughter like me. Looked at in a certain light, that wish was granted."

"What potion did your aunt want?" Tracey inquired with an sly grin.

Susan gaped at the Slytherin. "All the things you could ask, and you choose  _that_?"

"Sure. I'm rather curious what the lady of a Noble House would be doing visiting a folk healer so often."

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that," Jen answered with a smile not too dissimilar to her best friend's. "I don't exactly know myself, but considering the ingredients Elsie was using, my assumption is that Uncle Lucius is not exactly the most…  _virile_  of men."

That little lie amused her greatly. Elsie and Cissy had never met, at least not to her knowledge, but there was no way she was going to explain that the older witch had been one of her favorite lovers between the ages of seven and eleven. Such a thing would go over  _quite_ poorly.

It was at that moment that the train gave a great whistle, and they all rocked slightly as the Express began pulling away from the platform. Kenneth stood and motioned for Jen to join him. "Well, looks like it's time for us to go. Prefects always meet in the first compartment at the start of the trip."

"Very well." She edged out of the compartment and waved her hand down the corridor. "After you, good sir."

"Pretty sure chivalry's supposed to be  _my_  thing," he laughed as they made the journey to the front of the train. Upon finally reaching the first carriage, the Lion pulled open the wooden door placed in the middle of a wall that ran across the entire width of the car. She nodded her thanks and slipped inside.

The prefects' compartment larger than any of the others on the train by a fair amount, taking up the space of four as well as the hallway between. Considering it had to hold twenty-four students, that was a sensible alteration. Four low-backed benches were positioned on the side closer to the door and facing the front, each bearing cushions the color of a different house; her guess as to the colors' meaning was born out when she noticed her yearmate Anthony Goldstein sitting on the blue bench that made up the front row.

Pulling away from Kenneth so the seventh-year could take a seat on the third row, she passed the Badgers' bench and settled herself next to Goldstein. "So you're going to be my partner for the rest of our time at school."

"Looks like it," the blond boy answered, giving her a wary sidelong look. They had not interacted much the previous year, so the revelation of her 'parentage' had apparently unnerved him. "No offense, but I'm kind of surprised that Flitwick would pick  _you_  as a prefect, considering… you know…"

"That I've only been a student here for one year?" she asked with deliberate misunderstanding. "Clearly he thinks I am the right person for the position, despite what people may say about my  _inexperience_."

"…Right."

A black-haired seventh-year girl stepped in front of the benches, and to no one's surprise, Cedric Diggory quickly took his place at her left. They wore badges emblazoned with the letters  _'_ _HG_ _'_  and  _'_ _HB_ _'_ , respectively, both a bright gold to distinguish them from the prefects' silver. Cedric raised his wand and unleashed a high-pitched whistle to gain everyone's attention. "Can you all take a seat, please? We have a few things to discuss before we set out on patrols."

When they were seated, the Head Girl said, "Welcome to the start of yet another year of Hogwarts. For those of you who don't know me already, I am Viola Pucey, seventh-year Slytherin and your Head Girl. Diggory will be assisting me as this year's Head Boy."

"Really? I could have sworn it was the other way around." Cedric ignored Pucey's dismissive sniff and continued, "Most of you already know what's what, but for our newest members, allow me to explain what is now expected of you. As prefects, we are the students our heads of house trust most, granted the authority to enforce the school rules, maintain order, and generally act in their stead. I can't begin to describe just what a privilege this is, but do not forget that it is a  _privilege_. Abusing your authority will not be tolerated."

"There are, of course, restrictions on what you can and can't do," Pucey cut in. "The one we always have the most trouble with is in regards to point deductions. Yes, you  _can_  take points from students of other houses; no, you can't take as many as you want. Each prefect may deduct a maximum of twenty points for any infraction you notice. Nor is your punishment set in stone; your head of house will review all your deductions at the end of each week and, should he think your actions were in error, can and likely will moderate the deduction or even return the points entirely."

Cedric added, "And just so we're clear, you  _cannot_  take points from other prefects. Only we and the professors have that authority, so don't bother trying. Hopefully that won't be an issue this year." He eyed a couple of the older prefects for a moment. "Please keep in mind that you are now more than just a normal member of your house; you are its representative to the school at large and to the faculty. That badge you wear is more important than any personal or family grudges you may be involved in, and participating in such a thing  _will_  see you punished for it."

Behind her, Jen heard Malfoy and Weasley huff in disgust. Cissy had explained that their Houses had a feud going on, and had for generations; from their attitudes, she doubted they would be quick to obey Cedric's warning.

"At the risk of sounding  _Hufflepuffish_ ," Pucey said with greatly overdone distaste, more a joke than an actual insult, and the Head Boy rolled his eyes, "Diggory has the right of it on that subject. For the Gryffindors and Slytherins, I will say this only once: do  _not_  let our little house war interfere in carrying out your duties. If you do, if you take your badge as an opportunity to strike back against the  _'_ _slimy Snakes_ _'_  or the  _'_ _stupid Lions_ _'_ , I will  _personally_  come down on you like the hammer of Thor and give what's left of you to Filch to dispose of in the Forbidden Forest. Is that understood?"

The assembled Lions and Snakes mumbled a reluctant agreement.

"Good. Back on the topic of punishments, you can give a detention instead of deducting points, but what that time will be spent on and who the student in question will serve it with is dependent on their head of house. We have that same restriction, in case you were wondering. You may tell the appropriate head what your recommendation for said detention is, but that's all."

"That's about all we have to say about in regards to that subject," Cedric continued. "Due to various attempts at circumventing the rules that have occurred over the centuries, you are not allowed to  _give_  points, though you  _can_  report a reward-worthy action to the student's head of house. Corroboration from someone of a different house is recommended should the student in question be your housemate."

Pucey again took over. "We have nightly patrols alongside the professors; your head of house will give you your personal rota so you can add it to your schedule. If something comes up and you need to switch a patrol with someone else, arrange that between yourselves before discussing it with the faculty. We'll also patrol the Express today to make sure there aren't any problems, but thankfully that is rarely an issue. Seventh-years will patrol during the first and fourth hours of the trip, sixth-years the second and fifth, and fifth-years the third and sixth hours."

"I'm sure you all remember having a prefect lead you to your dormitories after the Welcoming Feast when you were firsties," said Cedric with a smile. "Fifth-years, you're in luck; that's  _your_  job. Everyone else, remember to make yourselves available for the first week or so in case a first-year gets lost."

"One more thing we need to mention, and something  _everyone_  could do with hearing again, is the prefects' bath," Pucey growled, looking at no one in particular as far as Jen could tell. "Yes, this  _is_  a communal bathroom; it is also mixed gender. If you don't want anyone else looking at your bits, I recommend you use it when others aren't there or, better yet, stick with the bath in your dorms and leave the rest of us to our business. That said, anyone who has sex in the bathroom  _will_  lose their access privileges for the remainder of the year, as will you should you give the password to anyone who is not a prefect. Passwords change at the start of each term; for now it's  _'_ _lemony clean_ _'_. The new password will be written on the chalkboard by the door one week before the end of term, and you can also use the board to leave messages for one another if need be, provided you keep the clutter to a minimum.

"I think that's everything," she told Cedric.

"So do I. Seventh-years, to your patrols; the rest of you, you can head back to your compartments. Jen, would you please stay for a minute?" he asked over the noise of the others leaving.

 _What could_ _ **this**_ _be about?_ , Jen wondered. She stepped to one side, and she could not help but notice that Potter's friends, Granger and Weasley, shot her curious looks as they walked past. To her further shock, Malfoy stopped for a moment to offer her a short nod and a muttered "Cousin" before departing. After another few seconds, it was just her and her fellow Triwizard Champion in the compartment.

When the young man did not immediately speak, she prompted, "What was it that you wanted to say to me, Cedric?"

"Before we all left for summer holidays, I completely forgot to tell you something," he began tentatively. "I don't know  _why_  I forgot, because it's a big deal, but my parents brought it up when I got home and were quite cross with me."

"I'm afraid I don't know where you're going with this."

"No, I suppose I'm not being very clear right now, am I?" He snorted in self-deprecating amusement. "Well, let me be upfront, then. Jennifer Black, during the fifth Task of the Tournament last year, your banishing spell threw me out of the way of the Killing Curse and onto the portkey that carried me to safety, leaving you to face our attacker alone. I owe you my life for that, and thus I am greatly in your debt." Suiting actions to his words, he bowed at the waist until his torso was nearly horizontal.

Jen blinked rapidly in surprise; this was not something she had expected. Though there were obviously aspects of Pureblood culture that she was of yet unaware, Andi and Cissy's hurried explanations of various societal obligations were enough for her to recognize the meaning behind his words. He was acknowledging a  _life debt_.

Life debts were by no means common, mostly because of the conditions necessary for them to form. For such a debt to exist, a witch had to save the life of another and in the process risk her own. To make matters more complicated, she could not enter the situation with any expectation of reward; even contemplating that an act of heroics could be enough to earn such a debt would prevent one from ever developing. When her aunts had discussed the subject, she thought she would never be in this position, and it was for that very reason. Very rarely did she do anything charitable without weighing the benefits.

_But in the graveyard, I didn_ _'_ _t consider what I could get out of saving his life. There just wasn_ _'_ _t any_ _**time** _ _. By the Baron, I didn_ _'_ _t even mean to throw him towards the portkey! Can a life debt really be made in those circumstances?_

This was not the time to ponder that question, however; she had to decide what to do right now. Now that he had admitted that the debt existed, there were two options before her. Should she acknowledge it, it would remain as it was, tying them together in some minor, unpredictable manner. At any time, she could call that debt due and require him to complete a task for her, and he would be compelled to see it through to the best of his ability regardless of his opinions on the mater. That was the normal way these conversations went.

The second option was to dismiss it, and it would be as if the debt had never existed. Such an action was exceptionally generous and rarely seen outside of Houses that were longtime allies. House Black and House Diggory, to the best of her knowledge, had never had ties like that, so from a societal perspective it would not be seen as odd for her to keep the debt hanging over his head. On the other side of that argument, however, she knew from spending time with Dora that Hufflepuffs were very much 'team players'. Looked at from that angle, he might very well hold it against her should she  _not_  free him from this obligation.

_Decisions, decisions. The biggest question is what would do me the most good? He is a close acquaintance, and having the Head Boy under my thumb could be useful, but at the same time I can't think of anything I could possibly need to order him to do that I couldn't get some other way. Forcing a wizard to do something for you against his will is much less difficult if you're not afraid of using the Imperius Curse. Besides, didn't Dora say that loyalty to one's friends was_ _**the** _ _most prized trait in Hufflepuff house? If it were a Ravenclaw or Slytherin speaking to me, I would worry that they could turn on me without this leash, but the so-called 'Hero of Hufflepuff'…_

"There can be no debts between friends," she finally answered, and around her left wrist she felt a cord of magic leading to Cedric's magical core fade into being and instantly break. She rubbed her skin to rid herself of the remaining tingle while he rose to stare at her. "I know that, should our situations be reversed, you would do the same for me without expectation of reward."

"Wha… Oh, yes, of course." He bobbed his head rapidly, and she cocked her own in curiosity as she turned over the wizard's hasty change in words. A groan threatened to escape her when she figured it out.  _He_ _ **didn't**_ _expect me to release him from that debt? Damn it! Such a waste, and I don't know that I'll ever be in a situation that would let me forge another._  Unaware of her rumination, he continued, "My parents were worried about how you'd take me telling you about that, but I knew you would be honorable about it."

" _Sure_  you did," she teased, keeping her annoyance at herself off her face.

His face grew hot from his blush, and he quickly stammered, "W-Well, I should start on my patrol now. It'll look horrible for the Head Boy not to do his fair share. I could escort you to your compartment if you want."

"Oh, I can find it on my own. Unless you wanted me around in case you need me to save you again?" He hung his head at her joke, and she chuckled before stepping closer and patting his cheek. "Don't look so glum. I'll never let you live down the fact that you needed a fourteen-year-old to pull your arse out of the fire, but what's a little ribbing between friends, right?"

"Yeah, yeah. Just head on out before you do any  _more_ damage to my self-esteem."

Her resulting laughter probably didn't help much in that regard.

* * *

Danny glanced up as Hermione and a very disgruntled Ron entered the compartment. He then had to force down the faint surge of jealousy at seeing the redhead wearing the prefect's badge. While he would never blame Ron for getting the position, he could not deny that he had expected that McGonagall would have picked  _him_  for the job. That the badge made Ron so happy just made him feel even  _more_  guilty that he had felt entitled to it, even subconsciously.

Shaking himself from his introspection, he said, "That was a quick meeting."

"The Head Boy and Girl were just going over what is expected of us this year. We have to patrol the train, but not for a couple of hours," the brunette answered as she fell into her seat next to Neville.

"Pretty boy Cedric Diggory and that Pucey girl from Slytherin," his best friend added from beside him.

He frowned at Ron's angry attitude. "Surely that's not what's set you off."

"No,  _that_  would be who we have to deal with now. Guess who's the Slytherin prefect."

Danny sighed in resignation. "It's Malfoy, isn't it?"

"Him and Parkinson." Hermione crossed her arms and huffed. "Why Snape would give that utter  _cow_  a prefect badge, I'll never understand."

"Well, it's not like he's got much to work with," Neville said after swallowing what was left of his Pumpkin Pasty.

She laughed bitterly. "True enough."

"Was Hannah the Hufflepuff girls' prefect?"

"Yes, Nev, your girlfriend was in there, too," taunted Ron.

Ignoring his godbrother's muttered denial regarding any romantic relationship, Danny asked, "Who else was in there from our year?"

"Well, Ernie Macmillan was the other Puff, and for the Ravenclaws…" The oft-called  _'Smartest Witch of Her Age'_  shared a nervous glance with Ron, and Danny's gut clenched.

 _Please don't say it's_ …

"Anthony Goldstein and Black."

Hearing her name caused him to sigh. "Merlin, that's just  _wonderful_." His sister; his  _twin_  sister, at that. He was still a little miffed at his parents for keeping  _that_ bombshell from him. They had said something about her when they visited his godfather, Sirius, at St. Mungo's two summers previous, but in all honesty he hadn't payed much attention. He had still been trying to wrap his head around the fact that the man whom his parents had always maligned as a despicable dark wizard was suddenly considered a respected fighter for the Light. Their trip had been cut short when the wizard threw them out, and he had not bothered to ask what the adults had talked about. He was just happy that everything could finally go back to how it had been all his life.

In hindsight, that assumption had been a mistake.

Now he was left reconciling the fact that he had a sister with the identity of said sister. Jennifer Black was a cheater, a liar, and a terror, as he had found out first-hand, and to his private shame, that distaste had not stopped him from admiring the girl's curves the previous year. If she weren't such a bitch, he had thought she could have been the kind of girl he wouldn't mind asking to Hogsmeade. He could not be happier now that he had never revealed those disturbing, disgusting thoughts to anyone else.

His mum had practically begged him to try to get along with her this year, but in all honesty, Danny wasn't sure how he could possibly go about it. There was already too much bad blood, even after only a year, and even if there weren't, she wasn't someone he  _wanted_  to spend time with. She was too much like a Snake for him to be comfortable around.

A growl drew his eyes to Neville, who sat ramrod-straight with his fists clenched tight. The normally calm boy had already disliked Black – that entire House, in fact, as did his grandmother – and finding out that she was claiming  _Lestrange_  of all people as a relative had only made it worse despite now knowing who her mother truly was. "Is there any way to get the professors to change their minds? That or ignore a prefect without getting in trouble?" His godbrother cursed under his breath when Hermione shook her head.

_And that's the_ _**second** _ _issue. What kind of person would ever want a_ _**Death Eater** _ _as her mother? I get that she's mad at Mum and Dad for leaving her with Aunt Petunia, and Dad said she wasn't happy there, but that wouldn't be enough to make_ _**me** _ _reject my own parents. From the way they said she acts, it's like she blames them for every bad thing that ever happened to her. If she's full of that much_ _**hate** _ _for them, how are we supposed to find common ground like Mum wants?_

Noticing his friends looking oddly at him due to his silence, he reluctantly announced, "Hey, Ron? Hermione? There's something I need to tell you. It's about Black…"

* * *

Stomping into their borrowed bedroom, Lily demanded, "I thought you said you were going to talk to Professor Dumbledore about getting out of this!"

"No, I wasn't," admitted James with a sigh as he levitated a folded robe into the space-extended trunk. "I told you that to give you a chance to calm down. Looks like that was a failure."

" _You think_?!" she shrieked. "James, why would you do this?!"

"I already told you. One of us needs to get a real job so we can qualify for a loan to buy a new house—"

"Don't give me that shite!" she snapped. "This isn't about the money or the house or anything, and you know it. This is about Jenny."

He summoned another robe into his hands before he turned to look at her. "Fine. Getting Jenny to realize that she's better off here is a major part of this, yes. If she won't come to us, I'll just have to go to her."

"And ruin everything in the process." She closed her eyes and silently counted to ten; this was not an argument she wanted to have when she was this angry. It wasn't an argument she wanted to have, period. "Have you thought that maybe, just  _maybe_ , this is a bad idea? Forcing yourself on her won't make her like you."

"If she's anything like you, I bet it will," he said with that boyish grin that normally made her melt into a puddle. Right now, all it did was fill her with heat of a different sort. "Look, Lils, I  _know_  what's happened with her. Narcissa Malfoy gave her a skewed picture of what we're like, and Sirius was mad enough at us that he didn't correct it. If I show her we're not as bad as they painted us, she'll open up."

She bit her tongue for a moment to keep from hurling out the first thing that came to mind. The second was little better. "James, I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I love you, but you are an  _absolute idiot_. Malfoy didn't do anything to make Jenny hate us; us leaving her with Petunia so she could be  _tortured_  was more than enough to do that all on its own. She isn't some young child who just mindlessly repeats the opinions she hears around her as fact, and treating her like all we need to get her back is talk louder than anyone else won't make any difference. Besides, how do you think Sirius will respond when—"

"I don't  _care_  what he'll do!" James shouted, wadding the black robe in his hands into a ball and throwing it to the floor. "She's  _my_  daughter, and I have the right to be part of her life!"

"And I'm not disagreeing with that!" Lily screamed back, all thoughts of keeping calm washed away by her anger. "I'm just saying this is the worst possible way you could go about getting her to  _want_  you around!"

"Then what am I supposed to do, huh?! Just sit around uselessly and wait for her to come to me on her own?  _That's_  worked so well this far!"

"At least if you do that, she won't resent you any more than she already does! I was actually making inroads with her until you and Dumbledore  _cocked it all up_!"

James scoffed. "Inroads, sure. Is that why she'd rather have  _Bellatrix bloody Lestrange_  as her mother than you?"

Her husband's harsh words physically staggered her, and she felt tears begin to gather in her eyes at the same time that the cruel knife buried in her breast twisted. He knew that was an open wound still; he  _knew_  it. How dare he use that against her!

At the look on her face, he at least seemed to realize that he had crossed a line that should have been left untouched. "L-Lily, I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

"We both know what you meant," she retorted, dashing the tears away. "You're right, she chose to claim her mother was a madwoman instead of acknowledging me, but just because she admitted you are her father doesn't mean she will accept you. Of the two of us, I'm the only one she's had a halfway decent conversation with."

She walked to the door, needing some time alone before she did something she would regret, but turned back just before she stepped over the threshold. "If you're this determined to ruin your chances to be a real father to her, fine. Throw it away. I just hope she doesn't choose to paint  _me_  with the same brush."

* * *

**Well, that first scene got out of hand quickly, didn't it? It's not a huge issue by any means – I have plenty of bigger problems with canon besides this – but I always thought it strange that despite Harry's best friends being prefects, their actual duties and restrictions were never elaborated on. Of course, we don't see the prefects much, anyway; except for Percy's overbearing nature and Cedric giving Harry the password to the bath, it's as if the position didn't exist until until book 5.**

**Ah, an example of marital bliss James and Lily are** _**not** _ **. In case you were wondering, I based their "discussion" on the kind of arguments I expect Ron and Hermione would have had post-honeymoon period when they realized they legitimately were** _**not** _ **right for each other.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	12. Sweet, Sweet Freedom

**Apparuerit, reader713:**  Honestly, I don't know if Jen and Hermione will be friends. While they are both intelligent, Hermione admittedly more than Jen, they approach situations from  _very_  different perspectives, so it would take time for them to see eye-to-eye. That's not to say I won't force them to spend a little time together just to see the fireworks, though…

**Waffliesinyoface:**  J.K.'s explanation for James being Head Boy despite not being a prefect, at least according to the wiki, is that the Headmaster can choose whomever he wishes for the position. That policy doesn't make any sense to me, but there you go. How James finally convinced Lily to give him the time of day is not explained in canon, but my guess? The same way Ron got with Hermione: magic-induced stupidity, love potions, authorial fiat, take your pick.

**Disclaimer:**  Did Hogwarts employ both a caretaker and a groundskeeper, even though those tasks were likely taken care of by the castle's house-elf population? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 12  
** **Sweet, Sweet Freedom**

A series of cracks echoed through the silent forest, and the Dark Lord Voldemort, accompanied by four of his Death Eaters, appeared on a road of packed earth. Pointing to a copse of trees to one side, he ordered, "Get behind cover, disillusionment charms as well. We do  _not_  want to be seen."

The men did as they were told, though it was clear they were anything but pleased by his command. "My lord," Timothy Nott began tentatively once they were hidden, "far be it from me to criticize—"

"Just spit it out," Voldemort interrupted with an unseen roll of his eyes.  _Damn Notts never can get to the bloody point. His father is the exact same way._

There was a rustling behind him as his follower shuffled in place. "Very well, my lord. Why are we waiting in these woods when we could easily take on anyone who tries to stand in our way?"

"And here I thought you were intelligent." The wizard spluttered at that, and the others barely contained their snickers. "Tell me, can you defeat the entire DMLE all by yourselves?"

"Certainly not, my lord. It would require the kind of power possessed only by you to do such a thing."

_Is he just pandering again, or does he truly believe I can take on over a hundred wizards in a straight fight?_  He shook his head. This was, unfortunately, not an uncommon mindset in Death Eaters whose parents had also served him; them being raised to think he was invincible was an advantage, especially now that he had proven that not even death could truly defeat him, but it also meant they expected even more miraculous feats of magic. He might be the most powerful wizard since Merlin, but even so, he would have trouble against those odds.  _Then again, there's a reason I chose to wage a guerrilla war against the Ministry rather than a full frontal assault. A hundred foes at once would be difficult, but ten groups of ten? Child's play._

Pulling back from his introspection, he replied, "But why fight more enemies than is necessary? We are not the boorish Light that answers each challenge with a headlong charge. We are cunning, and if the opportunity to sneak past the opposition presents itself…"

He raised his left hand to bid them be silent, and a tap on his head caused him to become invisible as well. A contingent of navy-robed mages, over a dozen strong, appeared from around a corner, and they all Disapparated as soon as they passed the Death Eaters' position. Another rap of his wand let him fade back into view. "…we take full advantage of our enemies' mistakes. Follow."

The five Dark wizards jogged down the road in the direction from whence the DMLE wizards had come, and Voldemort could not stop the fierce smile that appeared on his face as the dock came into view. This mission felt unexpectedly similar to his earliest raids, when he was less a general giving orders from his war room and more a squad commander leading his servants into battle personally. The rush as he stormed the enemy's stronghold, his magic singing in his veins as he prepared to deliver death upon them, the anticipation of being forced to create plans on the fly…

He had missed this.

_Well, I suppose that just means I'll need to get out in the field more often, then, won't I?_  His wand touched the gleaming gemstone set in the mast of the ship they had boarded, and silently it slipped out of its moorings to sail across the choppy waters. Thankfully their wait would not be long; by boat, it was only a two, maybe three minute journey to the shores of Azkaban Island.

He had said in the graveyard that his loyal followers would be rewarded, and he would do just that. Part of his reputation as a leader was that when he made promises, he  _kept_  them. Nothing was more terrifying to his enemies or more inspiring to his servants than knowing that he  _would_  follow through on his word.

"Master?" He turned to face Barty Crouch as the man stepped closer. "If I may ask, why are we storming the fortress of Azkaban with only the five of us and," here he waved a hand at the cloudless sky, "in broad daylight?"

"I assume you mean  _besides_  that the guards will have no reason to expect us?" The Dark Lord shifted his gaze to the prison for a moment before returning it to his soldiers. "The wizards and witches who passed us had just ended their shift, so those who arrived in turn are currently more occupied with settling themselves in for a twelve-hour shift than watching for our approach. That also gives us that length of time before anyone has a reason to check in with them. As for attacking during the day, it has nothing to do with the sun. Tell me, Barty, what is the time?"

Checking his pocket watch, the wizard answered, "Ten after ten, my Lord."

"10:10 on  _September first_ , less than an hour before the Hogwarts Express departs. Walden and Lucius both reported that the Ministry has increased its security measures, and the rumors they heard was that there would be a strong Auror presence on the platform. If the guards  _do_  manage to get a message to the DMLE, which again I doubt will happen, they will have a hard time deciding if they should move out in force or remain where they are in case this is just a diversion." He smirked at their gobsmacked expressions. "In war, one must always think three steps ahead of his opponent."

They only had to occupy themselves for another minute after that, and then they were racing up the path to the prison proper. Tall, dark gates swung open noisily once they were close enough, and the guard sitting at a desk ahead of them only had time to goggle in disbelief before Voldemort flicked his wand and ensnared the wizard with a silent Imperius Curse. "Tell me where I can find the warden's office."

"Other side of the building," the guard answered in a flat tone, his eyes glazed over. "Gold plaque on the door."

"Good. Open the way there."

The man nodded and pulled a handle hanging from the ceiling, and the section of wall to their right slid back before being hoisted upwards. The leader of their little posse lifted the skin where his eyebrow should have been at the sight.  _A hidden passageway going to the guards' quarters? That's an uncommonly clever bit of subterfuge for the Ministry. I wonder who thought of it when designing this place._  "Gregory, Luther, take the lead. Barty and Timothy, watch our backs."

"Yes, my lord," the replied in near unison.

The current patriarchs of the Goyle and Crabbe families stepped ahead of him, metal shields placed before them. The members of those two Houses were well known to not be the smartest or most magically capable of men, though the Crabbes  _were_  said to display an occasional talent for fire spells, but while he would not want them defending him with their wands, their unfortunate histories did present with some advantages. The shields they each bore were made of cold-forged iron, a metal that was already naturally resistant to magic. When crafted with ice and secret spells, however, the resulting product could defend against offensive magic as well as – or in the case of these two men, better than – a strong  _Protego_  charm.

These shields were not without drawback, however. Because they deflected magic, it was impossible to enchant, transfigure, or even charm them to be feather-light without destroying them, and they were heavy, nearly fifty pounds. No capable wizard would be caught dead carrying one when he could simply cast a shield charm or conjure a wall at will, but since these members of his organization were little better than squibs and built like oxen, they made the medieval look work for them.

The quintet had walked down three hallways, peering into each room they came across in case it was occupied, before they found another guard. The young man – no more than a boy, really – yelped and was still fumbling with his wand when the jet of acid green light smashed into his body. He dropped to the floor like a marionette thrown aside by its owner; Barty, in turn, lowered his own wand from where he had aimed between the shield-bearers. The Death Eaters continued along the corridor and opened the next door, Gregory Goyle immediately raising his shield to defend against the scarlet stunner fired at him.

They had found the guards' barracks.

Voldemort's wand was dancing even as he noted the positions of the eight inside and the paths of the spells hurled back and forth between the opposing forces. A ball of mist coalesced at the tip of the focus, and he flicked the orb into the room. He was able to catch a glimpse of it exploding into oily smoke just before his  _Colloportus_  slammed the door shut and locked it.

_I do so enjoy the Acid Breath Curse. Such a delightful little spell._  He had come across this particular piece of magic during his decade-long trip of exploration and research after killing Hepzibah Smith. Egyptian in origin, the Acid Breath was not uncommonly found as an enchantment in the tombs of the last pharaohs, generally paired with a hidden door that could swing shut behind any intruders. It was actually less a curse and more a self-perpetuating transfiguration, turning the surrounding air with into a corrosive vapor that would dissolve any organic matter it came in contact with, be that wood, leather, or living skin. If the guards inside tried to protect themselves with a Bubble-Head Charm, they would suffer the agony of having their flesh melt off their bones; if they did not use that spell… Well, breathing in the mist probably offered a quicker, if not less painful, death.

He added a few more locking spells, each more esoteric than the last and several of which also made the seal air-tight. He did  _not_  want the wizards inside opening this door and letting the smoke out. Thankfully, the spells did not have to last long; the Acid Breath Curse had an inherent time limit of five minutes, so as long as the vapor could not escape, it would eventually dissipate on its own.

_The guard I took control of, the one Barty killed, and then those just now. That's ten; if we assume that the new guards are equal in number to those who left, that leaves just two more, three if the warden wasn't given a reprieve. Excellent._

The additional guards did not show themselves, allowing him and his Death Eaters to reach the warden's office unmolested. Waving Gregory and Luther away, he opened the door.

"I told you, I don't want to be bothered right now!"

Voldemort gave a nasty smile at that and hissed, "My  _humblest_  apologies, but I simply  _had_  to speak with you."

The warden spun his chair around and almost shrieked upon seeing just who it was standing before him. He reached for his wand, but the Dark Lord summoned it out of his fingers before he could get a single spell off.  _Slack grip, using only the fingertips. Unused to combat. Probably given his position based on either administrative ability or, more likely, nepotism. Pathetic._

"W-W-Who are you?! What do you want?!"

"Who am  _I_?" he laughed mockingly. "Why, I thought my identity was common knowledge. After all, you people  _do_  call me  _'You-Know-Who'_."

The warden stumbled out of his seat and banged his shoulder against the iron wall behind him. "No. No. You can't be real. You're dead!"

" _Was_  dead. It was rather boring, though, so I came back to finish the revolution I started." The weak wizard merely gibbered at that, so Voldemort continued, "As for what I want, that's easy. How do you speak with the Dementors?"

"How, why—  _Aaaagh_!"

He cut off the Cruciatus Curse after a moment and let the man flop onto the ground. "Did you not hear me clearly, or are you just too stupid to understand?" Striding slowly towards the whimpering warden, each step of his boots clopping loudly against the floor, he eventually stood over the wizard. "How. Do. You. Speak. With. The. Dementors?"

The pathetic excuse for a magician stopped keening just long enough to point one shaky finger at a hanging cabinet on the other side of the room. He glided over and opened it, a thoughtful hum escaping his lips as he examined the artifact inside. "A little gaudy, but I suppose it will have to do." Pulling out the ornate crown, made from the same dark grey metal as the walls, he set it lightly on his bald head, mentally preparing himself for whatever effect it might have.

Nothing.

His eyes flicked around as he waited for the enchantments on it to kick in, but after another few moments, he turned back to the warden and aimed his wand. " _Crucio_. How does the crown work?"

"I don't know!" the other man screamed as he curled into a fetal position from the second short dose of pain. "I put it on, and the Dementors do what I tell them! That's all I know, I swear!"

"If that's all you know, then you're of no further use to me, are you?  _Avada kedavra_." The warden was illuminated with green light before becoming still. He looked to his followers. "Come, our compatriots have lingered too long in this place."

The journey back to the entrance was uneventful, and another command to the enslaved wizard behind the barred window had the gates leading up to the first level of the prison opening. Immediately upon stepping onto the landing, he aimed his wand at the last free and living guard in the fortress. " _Imperio_. Take us to the imprisoned Death Eaters."

Nodding his head dully, the Imperiused Ministry stooge picked up a pot of bluebell flames and guided them up a tortuous route to the very top floor. The man forced the ice-crusted door open and stood back, his assigned task complete.

Voldemort, on the other hand, strode inside and immediately noticed that while many Dementors were already present, and more were gathering by the second on the fringes of the swarm, none had yet tried to feed on him.  _Well, that's a good sign._  Taking a deep breath, he called out, "I am the Dark Lord Voldemort! Show me to your leader so that I may speak with him!"

_"We have no 'leader', Dark Lord Voldemort,"_  they said in eerie unison. Their voices were shrieks, high-pitched and grating on the ears, and there was a warble underlying the sound like a plucked harp string.  _"You are not the Wardens. You bear the Crown of Demens. Why are you here?"_

This… was not what he had expected.  _A hive mind? Or perhaps a single sapience in multiple vessels?_  It was something to think about when he was away from this place, at least. "Members of my forces have been trapped in this prison for years. It is time for them to be released and continue their work." He hesitated a moment. "So long as I am here, you will not Kiss anyone without my explicit permission, understood?"

_"We obey the Crowned."_

Voldemort entered the hallway and looked back at his cowering followers. "Come along!"

"Are… Are you sure they won't give us the Kiss, my lord?" Timothy Nott asked hesitantly.

_As I thought, only by wearing this 'Crown' can I understand them._  "Yes, I'm sure, but I might change my mind on that if you don't hurry up." The Death Eaters raced towards him, spurred on by a couple of Dementors floating behind them and blocking the path back to the doorway. He, on the other hand, simply shook his head in disappointment and made his way to the first of his imprisoned soldiers he wished to speak to, the resident of cell number 13-1039. A wave of his wand undid the locks, allowing it to swing open with a loud creak, and for the first time in almost fourteen years, Bellatrix Lestrange shuffled outside of her tiny cage.

The witch cringed away from the Dementors, her head jerking around as she tried to keep all of them inside her field of vision. Those wild purple eyes fell on him then, and suddenly her panic was forgotten. "Master?" she breathed, falling to her knees and crawling forward to grab weakly onto the hem of his robe. "Master, you're here. I knew you would be. I  _knew_."

"And your faith was well-founded. Stand." She immediately staggered to her feet, and he had to force himself not to show his disgust at the smell wafting off of her. Clearly the guards had not cared about their prisoners' hygiene.  _Should I interrogate her about her daughter now or later?_  Weighing his options quickly, he decided to postpone that particular talk. There was plenty of time for that, and considering what was commonly known about Dementor exposure, giving her mind time to stabilize could only be beneficial. Why, she might not even remember she had a daughter at this moment!

"What are all of you standing around for?" he demanded, looking to the Death Eaters who had accompanied him. "Release your brothers in arms."

It only took a few minutes, and then he was looking at the few of his followers who had chosen to go to prison rather than forsake him as the rest had. Augustus Rookwood, fiddling absently with a loose thread of his striped robe; Antonin Dolohov, once a blond giant but now a mere shadow of his former self; Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange, both just as emaciated as Bellatrix. Christopher Montague. Brian Mulciber. Stephen Selwyn. Andrew Rhodes. Jonathan Travers.

He turned ruby eyes on the last individual released from his cell: Peter Pettigrew, Wormtail, the sniveling coward who had hidden himself as a rat and stayed in that form until his cover was ruined by Sirius Black. Perhaps if he had had Wormtail at his side the previous year, he could have sent Barty into Hogwarts as a constant source of intelligence rather than have him gather the occasional scraps he picked up masquerading as his father, but the past was done. No sense getting angry over something that could not be changed.

"My most devoted Death Eaters," he whispered, though his voice carried well in the frosty silence. "Fourteen years ago, you chose to profess your loyalty to me rather than slink back into society as some of your fellows did. For almost a decade and a half you have  _languished_  here, with only your belief that I would return to stave off your hopelessness. And now, I stand before you once again. I… am  _back_." The ten skeletal figures cheered as best as their fatigue and diseased coughs allowed, Wormtail catching on a moment later. "I punish harshly those who stand against me, this you well know, and in the same way, I  _reward_  those who serve me diligently."

His gaze trailed over them, and a dark smile graced his features. "Fourteen years in prison because you were proud to be known as mine?  _That_ , my loyal followers, is true service, and you have my word: you  _will_  be rewarded.

"However, I can't help but notice that we are not alone at the moment." Voldemort turned to the nearest occupied cell, and the wizard inside retreated. Making his way to the tiny window set in the door, he asked, "Who are you?"

"J-J-Jack Sullivan, sir," the man stuttered fearfully.

He purred, "Jack. Sullivan. Tell me, Jack Sullivan, what would you give to escape from this place? Would you take my Mark and swear to serve me as faithfully as these wizards and witch have? Would you become one of my Death Eaters if it meant being able to see the sky again and sleep without foul nightmares causing you to wake up screaming night after night? Would you rise up against the Ministry in order to be free?"

"I… I…" The wizard scrunched his face up for several moments before nodding rapidly. "Yes, my… my lord. I would join you."

"Then do so." A sharp slash of his wand had the wooden door opening. "Come out, Jack Sullivan, and join your brothers." While the man hesitantly crept out of the doorway, the Dark Lord turned to the other cells. "And what about the rest of you? Would you join my army and my cause? Or would you rather stay here and rot? Make your choice!"

"I'll join!"

"I can be a Death Eater!"

"Let me out! I'll do whatever you want!"

"No!" The Death Eaters, old and new, turned to stare at one cell, or more precisely the woman inside. The prisoner stared down the hall at them, hatred burning in her gaze. "I know the kind of things you did; I won't torture and murder on your orders. Not like how you killed my nephew. I'd rather die!"

His eyes narrowed, but he kept his voice pleasant. "Is that your  _final_  answer? You won't have another opportunity, you realize this."

"You heard me."

"That I did. Is there anyone else who feels the same way as this woman? Anyone?" Slowly, tentatively, another three or four inmates spoke up, voicing the same ideas that the prisoner had. "Very well. Barty, Timothy, continue releasing those who will join us. Those who won't, leave in their cells."

The 'recruitment' of his newest supporters took no more than a few minutes; in the end, only the five who had already turned down his offer stayed locked up. "Good. Death Eaters, go back downstairs. Dementors?"

_"We hear you."_

"Can you open the cell doors?"

_"We can."_

A cruel grin appeared on his visage. "Excellent. To those left in their cells on this floor… administer the Kiss, then rejoin me."

"What?! No! You can't do this!" the witch who had foolishly rejected her chance at freedom shrieked.

_"The Crowned commands. We obey."_

He turned around and began the trek down the stairs, the screams of the soon-to-be-executed echoing behind him. When he had tried to steal the Philosopher's Stone, he had told Danny Potter that there were no such things as good or evil; there was only  _power_ , and those too weak to seek it.

In this war, he had no use for weaklings.

* * *

"…but what he didn't realize was that, by setting the charm, what he would find is that it was my  _cousins_ who were sneaking into the pantry to steal sweets. He was so mad at them that I think he might have actually considered setting aside his dislike for me just so he could point to  _one_  grandchild that wasn't disappointing him at the moment," Tracey laughed.

Jen shook her head as the girl finished the story. It  _was_  amusing, in an ironic sort of way, but her mind was still stuck on just how much Lord Davis had to hate Tracey to lock up her own birthday presents where she would need to bribe the family house-elf to get them back. Cissy had liked her far more than that even  _before_  the blood adoption, and her aunt did not consider Muggles to be human! Something would need to be done about Tracey's grandfather sooner or later; she would not tolerate her greatest ally and best friend being treated like rubbish.

The doors to the Great Hall were wide open and the room itself was already filled with students by the time she and her friends entered, but it was not until her eyes could scan the staff table that she discovered a very big problem. Hoping against hope, she checked her sonar, but no, the man's magical core was the same as always. "Ah, shite. Someone please tell me I'm hallucinating."

"Are you hallucinating that your father is sitting at the staff table?" Luna asked weakly. At her nod, the younger girl continued, "Then either we're sharing the same bout of psychosis, or he's actually there."

_Of course he's going to be here. That bloody buggering bastard can't make things_ _ **easy**_ _for me, can he?_  Potter the elder had sent three letters to Grimmauld Place following the reveal of her adoptive parentage; the first was little more than a chastisement for rejecting her heritage, smearing the Potter name, and insulting her 'real' mother, and the others she had burned rather than read. Now he was going to be  _teaching_?

"So your dad's going to be our Defense teacher this year?"

"We can't be sure just yet," Padma replied to Morag's question. She nodded at another new staff member, one Jen did not recognize by face or core. "Could be her, instead. My question is what other class did we lose a professor for?"

"Hope it's Care;  _anyone_  would be better than Hagrid. If he makes us work with monsters again this year, I'm walking out and doing self-study. I don't even care what Snape says about it," Tracey said with a shiver, not that Jen could blame her. The Care for Magical Creatures class the previous year had been forced to care for hideous monstrosities called Blast-Ended Skrewts, abominations she personally believed were some form of manticore hybrid. Meeting and killing one during the final Task of the Triwizard Tournament had  _not_  been her idea of a good time. "Anyway, I need to get to my own table. See you guys tomorrow morning?"

"Fine by me. It's not like we have any classes until Monday." The Slytherin moved on, and the black witch led her other friends to a few empty seats at the Raven's table.  _Now I just need to decide what I'm going to do about James Potter. Somehow, I doubt he'll have the decency to leave me alone._

McGonagall and a second witch, another person she had not yet met, entered the Great Hall at the head of the contingent of first-years. The unknown woman continued to the staff table while the Transfiguration professor set the frayed Sorting Hat on top of a stool.

_Its song isn't any better this year than last_ , the heiress of Black noted as she tuned the hat's lyrics out. She was not a fan of the object; when she had been forced to sit under it, it had been adamant that it needed to look through her memories – many of which she did not want anyone, especially something whose silence she could not guarantee, riffling through willy-nilly – to decide which house she belonged in. Her refusal to let it peruse whatever it liked in her head had caused a large enough argument that it was ultimately the castle itself that had settled the problem and Sorted her into the house of intelligence.

_Though I haven't heard another peep from 'Lady Hogwarts' since_ , she thought with a slight frown.  _It's probably a good thing that I've stayed off its – her? – radar, but just the idea that the castle is truly_ _ **sentient**_ _is disconcerting. I didn't worry about it last year, but there was nothing to stop Hogwarts from telling the headmaster, Mr. 'Leader of the Light' himself, that I brought a Death Focus as one of my possessions. What are its goals? What's the endgame?_

… _And why am I worried about what a_ _ **building**_ _is going to do to me? The_ _ **people**_ _here are the ones who cause all the problems_. She returned her mind to the Sorting, paying careful attention to the names, faces, and magical signatures of all the eleven-year-olds who were sent to her table. If she and Goldstein were in charge of the firsties as Cedric had implied during his speech on the Express, it would behoove her to be able at least to tell them apart from all the other students in the school.

Dumbledore stood from his golden throne and clapped loudly. "I have just a few announcements before we start in on our spectacular feast. First, the forest on the edge of the grounds, known appropriately as the Forbidden Forest, is quite obviously forbidden for anyone to enter. It seems that every year we have at least a few students do so anyway," here he aimed an obviously fake glare at the Gryffindor table, "but this rule truly is in place for your safety.  _Please_  stay out.

"Second, due to an inordinate number of questions about what items and behaviors are and are not allowed at Hogwarts, Mr. Filch has elected to post a list of the various prohibitions on the door of his office. If you have concerns about something you brought with you, check this list before asking him personally or in writing. This is both to facilitate communication as well as allow him sufficient time to fulfill his other duties.

"Third and finally, I am pleased to note some additions to our staff." The students began muttering at that as the old man indicated the witch who had entered the Great Hall alongside McGonagall. "Some of you may already know Professor Grubbly-Plank from her time with us last winter. She will again be taking over the Care of Magical Creatures class for at least the autumn term, and potentially the entire year, as Professor Hagrid is unfortunately out of the country on personal business."

_I bet Tracey's happy about that_. She looked over at the Snake and noted that yes, her friend was indeed grinning broadly.

"Professor Potter"—said man waved his hand to raucous applause from the Lions—"is this year's Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor, and I guarantee that you will all find his lessons both informative and enjoyable."

Jen rolled her eyes and fought down a snarl.  _Want to bet? Not only is he in the castle, he's teaching a required course. I'm_ _ **already**_ _not enjoying this._

"And last but certainly not least, we have Professor Umbridge." Dumbledore gestured at the squat witch in the pink cardigan, who was pushing herself out of her chair when he continued, "After a number of discussions with the Ministry, it was decided that Professor Binns deserved to enjoy the retirement he has earned numerous times over, and as such Professor Umbridge will be taking charge of the History of Magic class. She has also informed me that any of our NEWT students who wish to sit in on her lectures during their free time are more than welcome to attend.

"I do believe that's everything. Tuck in, everyone!"

Morag picked up the tureen of beef stew that had just appeared and served herself. "Anyone else see how mad that Umbridge woman was at the end of Dumbledore's speech?"

"Yes, I did," Jen said with a nod. The broad woman had shot quite the ugly glare at the headmaster after plopping back into her seat. "From the way she acted before that, I think she was going to say something when Dumbledore just kept going. Probably wanted to introduce herself." Noticing that the blonde at her side was still staring at Umbridge, she asked, "Luna, what's got you so distracted?"

"Just wondering what she's doing here."

Padma stopped eating for a moment to look askance at the youngest member of their year. "What do you mean? Dumbledore just said—"

"I don't mean that. Since my dad writes the  _Quibbler_ , he knows who's who at the Ministry." Luna nodded at the woman. "Dolores Umbridge is, or perhaps was, Minister Fudge's Senior Undersecretary. So again, I'm curious. Why was a highly placed civil servant chosen to come here just to teach History?"

The Black heiress glanced again at Umbridge. "When you put it like that, that's a very good question."

* * *

Dolores dropped back into her chair and aimed a not-so-subtle glare at Dumbledore. She had told the old man  _that very afternoon_  that she had a small speech she wanted to give to the students immediately after his announcements, and he had agreed to her request. That he would now ignore that, likely excusing his snub as mere forgetfulness if she chose to make an issue of it…

Well, he had never been a very good politician. All making enemies unnecessarily did was cause people to wake up one morning to find that they were surrounded and out of options.

"Was there something you wanted to say to the students?" asked a voice to her left. She looked over at the dark-skinned witch beside her, who immediately grinned sheepishly. "Ah, sorry. Aurora Sinistra; I teach Astronomy."

_Sinistra?_  She could not recall that name, but that did not necessarily mean anything. There were far more Pureblood families than there were Noble Houses, so assuming someone was Impure based solely on that criterion was a tremendous mistake. This was especially true for married or widowed witches; anyone judging her based on her own name, for instance, would be unaware of her origin as a member of House Selwyn. "Dolores Umbridge. And yes, I had planned on at least introducing myself. With everyone so used to Professor Binns, I hoped to reassure them that I would not be nearly so…"

"Drop-dead boring, pun very much intended?"

"I was going to say  _uninspiring_ , but that works, too," she replied with a similar smile to the other witch's.

Sinistra nodded knowingly. "Sounds about right. Albus doesn't let anyone else speak during the Welcoming or Ending Feasts; even Minerva, if she has an announcement, has to wait until breakfast or lunch the next day."

Dolores fought the smirk that wanted to appear. Not even the old goat's deputy was allowed to intrude on 'his' show? "Does this kind of thing happen often? Professor Dumbledore being dismissive of the staff's wishes, I mean."

"I'm not really sure, to be honest." The Astronomy professor shrugged her shoulders. "I know that I've been requesting new telescopes and professional star charts for a couple of years now, all of which have been denied, but I can't say anything for the others. You'd have to ask them."

"I see. Thank you for warning me." She raised her goblet to hide her smile.  _You see, Dumbledore,_ _ **this**_ _is why you don't want to make more enemies than you have allies, even 'weak' ones. You never know when someone will come along with the goal of aiming them in your direction._

* * *

"Here's Professor Flitwick's office," Jen said to the fifteen first-years trailing after her, Goldstein walking at her side. "For those of you who don't know, Flitwick is our head of house as well as the Charms teacher, and any concerns you have that you don't feel comfortable coming to us or the other prefects about you can talk to him about."

She then led them to the bronze eagle head set into the wall. "And  _this_  is the entrance to our common room. The other houses have passwords to keep unwanted people out, but we have a different system. To get inside, you have to answer a riddle."

"Um, miss? Jen?" one girl, Maisie Jackson, quickly amended at Jen's raised eyebrow. She had told them that she wanted them to refer to her by her first name, and she was not going to budge on that. Familiarity bred trust, after all. "If you just have to answer a riddle to get in, how does that keep anyone else from coming and going all they want?"

"On its own, it doesn't, though it  _does_  do a remarkable job of keeping the least tolerable people away from us. As for anyone who's not a Raven and smart enough to gain entry, most of them don't want to cause trouble, so there are no issues with letting them inside. In that respect, we're actually very hospitable, though not quite as much as the Hufflepuffs. But I'll let  _them_  share that secret with you." She grinned at that memory; all her friends, she and Tracey most of all, had been shocked when Susan revealed that all one had to do to enter the Hufflepuff common room was to find the right portrait and ask nicely. Admittedly, that trick only worked in the hours after classes and before curfew and only if there was a prefect inside, but it was still a good example of just why the Badgers were considered the friendliest house.

"But what if someone  _does_  get in and  _does_  cause trouble?"

"As you'll find out, Maisie, the common room is almost  _never_  empty. There's always at least one upperclassman in there either studying or tutoring. And in the rare case that there isn't…" Turning to the knocker, she asked, "Has any student from a different house come by in the past few hours?"

"No, Miss Black," the eagle replied, to the surprise of the firsties.

"If someone  _had_  been here, he would have said yes and told me who it was, so don't worry about anyone sneaking around and getting away with it. Any other questions before we go in?" The assembled children shook their heads. "Okay, then. Our proud eagle will ask the same riddle until someone gets it right, and you only get one guess, so don't blurt out the first answer that comes to mind unless you know you're right. Give me an easy one, Alfred, so I don't look bad in front of the kiddies."

"As you wish," it croaked." _'This thing all things devours; birds, beasts, trees, and flowers. Gnaws iron, bites steel, grinds hard stones to meal. Slays kings, ruins town, and beats high mountains down'_."

She snorted at that. Obviously a Muggleborn had taken the time to teach the eagle some new tricks; how else would it be able to quote from  _The Hobbit_? "The answer is time."

"Correct."

The wall containing the knocker swung inwards, allowing them to see the other Ravens assembled in a loose circle on the edges of the room. Jen nearly groaned when she noticed that they were all watching her.

_I suppose I shouldn't be_ _ **that**_ _surprised._  Smiling sweetly, she remarked, "Well, this doesn't look too inviting."

* * *

**I probably took more liberties than is entirely appropriate with the concept of cold forging; in reality, it's basically just hammering iron into the desired shape at room temperature.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	13. Diverging Opinions

**kishinokurobi:**  Voldemort kills primarily when it is advantageous or when it will induce terror in the populace; most of the wanton murders were the actions of the Inner Circle, who – unlike Voldie himself – truly are fanatical Pureblood supremacists.

 **Acaila, bissek, Garbouw Deark:**  Yes, with Umbridge I'm once again "de-Flanderizing" a character's canon presentation. My personal view is that if she's a career public servant, she should  _at least_  be able to keep her bigotry to herself when in public. Her characterization in book 5 felt like it was meant to accomplish two goals: one, make the Ministry out to be a center of bigotry and corruption, and two, pose to the students the question of "Do you support Harry and Dumbledore or the Ministry?", which was rather unfair considering that for many of them Umbridge was the only member of the latter they had ever interacted with.

 **Lord of Bones:**  You talk like you think my portrayal of James and Lily was  _intentional_. I've  _already said_  that my original plan was to have them flipped, but that just wasn't how their characterizations turned out. That said, the more I thought about it, the more I think James really  _would_  have been a  _'cliché Gryffindor posterboy'_ , as you phrased it, had he not died before the series began.

**This is the third – and hopefully last – chapter that takes place on September first. I really need to stop spending so much time on individual days, or this story will** _**never** _ **get done.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did Gryffindor house turn on Harry at only the slightest provocation, not once but multiple times? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 13  
** **Diverging Opinions**

_The wall containing the knocker swung inwards, allowing them to see the other Ravens assembled in a loose circle on the edges of the room. Jen nearly groaned when she noticed that they were all watching her._

I suppose I shouldn't be  **that**  surprised _. Smiling sweetly, she remarked, "Well, this doesn't look too inviting."_

* * *

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Luna could not hold back her snort of laughter.  _Oh, Jen. Only you_.

One of the seventh-years cleared his throat and stepped forwards. "Welcome to Ravenclaw house, first-years. Professor Flitwick will probably have something to say to you in a few minutes. Black? We were wondering if you would be willing to answer a few questions for us."

"Ah, I think I see. All of you are curious about the same things, I'm guessing?" Most of the house nodded, but the blonde could not help but notice that several of the youngest students, the second-years Jen had taken under her metaphorical wing the previous year, were glaring at the upper years.  _Clearly they aren_ _'_ _t any happier about this than we are_ , she thought, glancing over at Padma and Morag. Both girls had their arms crossed and were radiating their displeasure for all the world to see.

"Very well." Jen crossed the floor and settled into one of the armchairs by the fireplace. With her legs crossed and her fingers absently tracing patterns in the soft leather of the armrests, she looked eminently comfortable, like there was nothing she would rather do more than answer their every question. It was only the tight edge to her little grin and the way her right foot was twitching in the air that revealed to Luna just how stressed she was feeling at this moment. "Go ahead. Ask what you wish."

The other Ravens look at each other, apparently unsure just how to respond to Jen's show of confidence. Finally, one of them spoke up. "So you're the daughter of Bellatrix Lestrange."

"As Skeeter revealed and we confirmed."

"And you didn't tell anyone? Why?"

"Look around you," she answered with a sad smile. She waved at the assembled students. "All of you – except the firsties, of course – got to know me at least a little over the past year. Even still, we come back, and you set up this… Is  _'_ _inquisition'_  too strong a word?" The teenagers muttered amongst themselves, uncomfortable with that characterization. "No matter what it should be called, it's clear that there are some of you who distrust me, even fear me, due to my mother. How much worse would your reaction have been if that was the  _first_  thing you knew about me?"

"Is there any reason we  _should_  trust you?" The ranks shifted until one of the older boys, a sixth-year, was at the front of the crowd. He aimed a baleful glare at Jen. "My aunt and uncle were  _murdered_  by that woman. How do we know that you're any better than her?!"

The gathered students muttered at that, but they grew silent when the heiress of House Black stood from her chair. "You have my condolences," the girl said softly, giving the boy a small nod, "and if there was anything I could say or do that would bring your family back to you so that I might heal the wound my own left, I would gladly do so. Unfortunately, since that is not possible, I can only say that you have no reason to fear a repeat of that tragedy from me."

"But how do we know for sure? You're her  _daughter_ , for Merlin's sake!"

"Indeed I am, but just because she gave birth to me does  _not_  mean I am anything like her." Jen tilted her head. "Do you know how many times I've spoken to her in my lifetime?" When the older boy shook his head in negation, she answered, "Only once; this past summer, in fact, just before the news broke. Before then, all I had were the stories told to me by my aunts, and let me tell you, those were  _not_  the happy kind of things your parents likely told you about  _your_  relatives. What  _I_  grew up with were cautionary tales about her extremism, her cruelty, and her madness.

"How can you know that I am not my mother? Because my House raised me in such a way that they were  _sure_ they would not unleash another monster into the world."

"What… What would they have done if you had?" a third-year asked tentatively.

Rather than answer immediately, Jen turned around and walked back to her chair. Only once she was comfortable again did she look at the younger girl. "I won't go into detail – it isn't something suitable for this type of forum – but suffice it to say that if I  _had_ been like my mother, none of you would have had any clue that I ever existed. Yet  _another_  advantage to raising me in secret," she added with a humorless smile.

The blonde shuddered at those words and the flat tone they were spoken in, as did several others around her. Just a couple of centuries ago, it had been the custom that Pureblood families would smother newborn children should a magic-detecting charm reveal them to be squibs. Witches would rather have it believed that they were incapable of giving birth to living children than reveal that they had had magicless pregnancies. It was only when evidence was discovered that the spell that was so widely used was unreliable on children younger than one year of age that the DMLE cracked down on the rampant infanticide.

From the way Jen spoke, Luna had the disturbing suspicion that it was only because she  _was_  sane that her House had not brought that method back.  _And worse, she doesn't sound like she has any problem with that at all_ , she whimpered in her head.

"This your main concern, yes? That I would not wake up one day and decide to torture and kill anyone and everyone around me?" The others shared uncomfortable glances, and Jen just rolled her eyes. "And you wonder why I kept my heritage to myself last year. It was to avoid  _this exact situation_."

The door to the common room opened again, and the crowd parted so Flitwick could enter. "What is this? Why is everyone…" He trailed off when he saw Jen sitting in the chair apart from the rest of the house, then he sighed before approaching her. "I take it nothing  _too_  bad happened in my absence?"

"Nothing to worry about, Professor. We were just having a little chat."

"Be that as it may…" The quarter-goblin turned back to the crowd. "Let me make something  _very_  clear for all of you. In this house, we do not judge others based on the actions of their relatives, near or distant. We do not judge others based on preconceived notions. We judge others based  _solely_  on what they  _themselves_ have done. The War was cruel," he continued softly, looking about the students, "and many in this room, in this castle, lost someone close to them. I did, too, so believe me when I say that I know  _exactly_  how you feel. I will not make light of their deaths, but neither will I allow old grudges to come to the fore so that you may take them out on those who had no part in it."

"But Professor—"

"That is all I have to say on the matter," Flitwick said, cutting off the same boy who had implied that Jen was a future murderess. "I know that I have not been the most…  _'_ _hands-on_ _'_  head of house in recent years, but I am keeping a closer eye on all of you, and I will not permit  _any_  of you to cause harm to another or to be harmed in turn. Do I make myself clear?"

Muttered assent came from the assembly; some of it reluctant, some of it grudging, but for the most part it was freely given.  _Probably because he wasn_ _'_ _t just guaranteeing_ _ **Jen**_ _ **'**_ _ **s**_ _safety_ , Luna realized.  _If Jen, for whatever reason,_ _ **did**_ _lose it, he just said he would protect everyone else from her. That would never happen, but knowing that he wouldn_ _'_ _t ignore the rest of them in that situation should put this to bed finally._

The tiny wizard looked over them for a moment longer before addressing the first-years. "Well, this was an unusual start to the year. As you might be aware, I am Professor Flitwick, your head of house…"

* * *

Draco fiddled with his wand as he listened to the discussion going on around him. He was not entirely surprised about their subject matter, but still he affected a disinterested air while the rest of Slytherin, in small groups, discussed his newfound cousin.

"…She's a Black, though, and you know how that House has stood for purity for centuries…"

"…But didn't one of them get disowned recently? Marrying a mudblood, I heard. How do we know what she really thinks?…"

"…Sirius Black was a Gryffindor, my father said. Wasn't like the rest of his family at all. I bet he's poisoned her against the proper order of things…"

"…You wouldn't know this, but  _my_  uncle sits on the Wizengamot. He told me and my mother that she came in for her Introduction wearing the same style of dress  _Morgana herself_  was said to have. No Light idiot would do that…"

"…So what about the blood-traitor? Didn't you read the article in the  _Prophet_? She was raised by Malfoy's mother. She's bound to see how the world really works…"

"…Wasn't she wearing Light colors, though? No self-respecting Dark witch would be caught dead in that…"

"…Stuck-up twat. If she wants to spend her time with a bunch of blood-traitors, that's her problem…"

"…You'd have to ask her, but I wouldn't be surprised if she's planning to continue the club…"

Confused about that last statement, he looked over to the adjacent corner where the voice had come from. Davis, the half-blood nobody, sat whispering with several of the midgets, maybe second- or third-years.  _Does she think that if she catches them early, they won_ _'_ _t realize that she_ _'_ _s little better than the rest of the filth?_ He shook his head immediately after that thought occurred to him; he needed the dirty-blooded chit, much as he hated to think about it. She was his way in.

 _'The Dark Lord has a mission for you'_ , his father had told him a couple of weeks previously.  _'None of us knew that your aunt Bellatrix had had a daughter; not me, not your godfather Timothy, not even the Dark Lord. The only one who has any useful knowledge about her is your mother, but since she abandoned us and the Cause to return to her blood-traitor relatives, we can no longer walk next door and simply ask her. I have tried my best to get back in touch with her, but my efforts have been for naught. Even if they had not been, though, I doubt she would have told me anything; she cares more for her old House than she does for us._

_'Your job is simple: find out everything you can about Jennifer Black. I want to know where she stands in the War, what her political views are, what she likes to eat for breakfast._ _**Everything** _ _. The Dark Lord thinks she can be useful to him, so anything you dig up is worth the trouble.'_

Draco scoffed again in the safety of his mind.  _I still don't see what's so important about her, but if Father commands it, I don't have much choice, do I?_  He had made his first overture that very morning, even if it was only acknowledging her as his cousin. Once he had her attention, step two would be wiggling his way into her confidence, likely via Davis if he could not do it on his own.

That would also be the hardest aspect of his plan. Not because she would refuse to trust him; despite the sneakiness she had shown during the Triwizard Tournament the previous year, she was still a Ravenclaw, and they were not exactly known for their people skills. No, the most troublesome part would be dealing with the company she chose to keep. Bones was okay, a member of an Ancient and Most Noble House, and MacDougal was at least a member of a Noble House, even if it wasn't important in the slightest, but the rest of them?

Towler was not only a commoner, he was a Gryffindor. Patil was a wog who shouldn't even  _be_  in this country. Davis was only half a witch, but even she was better than the Mudblood Badger Finch-Fletchley. And last but not least, there was Lovegood, the daughter of the nutjob who printed the Quibbler. They weren't sensible, important, or even rich; they supposedly lived close to the  _Weasleys_ , for Merlin's sake! Those two Houses could not come up with two knuts to rub together between them.

_And if I want to complete the task Father has given me, I'll have to rub elbows with them and pretend that the world wouldn't be better with all of them wiped out._ _**Why** _ _is getting Black on our side so important to the Dark Lord?! Because House Black has money? We do, too! Because she's Aunt Bellatrix's daughter? I'm the son of his right hand, but he hasn't paid this kind of attention to me! What's so special about her?_

_Unless he_ _ **doesn't**_ _want her on his side_ , he considered then.  _Father did say that she was there for the Dark Lord's resurrection, didn't he? And that she ran away because she was scared? Maybe the Dark Lord wants her because she was supposed to be a demonstration of what happens to blood-traitors and she escaped before he could kill her. That would make a lot more sense._

_Well, in that case I had better come up with a plan to get on Black's good side. And if I'm lucky, the Dark Lord will even kill the rest of the blood-traitors she surrounds herself with before doing her in._

* * *

Neville turned away from his housemates clustered in the corner of the common room. When the seventh-year they were interrogating – Towler, he thought the prefect's name was – had tried to defend his friendship with Black, several others had surrounded him to satisfy their curiosity. It had only taken a few minutes' listening to realize they were planning to give the girl an honest chance rather than stand against her as they should.

Thankfully, the rest of the Lions were thinking with clear heads. The house of the brave would not tolerate the daughter of arguably the worst Death Eater who ever lived to walk around as if she owned the castle!

His clenched fist twitched as he thought about that girl. His whole life, his grandmother had told him about his parents, how they had stood firm against the Dark until they had been cruelly cut down by the Lestranges and Crouch. Bellatrix Lestrange especially had been the cause of his life's miseries, since she was in fact the one who had tortured his mother and father until they were little more than mindless husks. Every year, he and his gran went to St. Mungo's Hospital to visit them, and every year he was forced to see the still-living corpses of the people who should have raised him. The only peace he could get on those days was knowing that the monsters responsible were locked away and that there was no way they could ever get out.

And then, this summer, he had learned that their bloodline continued.

Oh, he knew Black was not  _really_  Lestrange's daughter; his godparents, James and Lily, had sat down with him, his gran, and Danny the same day Skeeter's article had come out to explain the truth of the situation. How Black was actually Danny's twin sister and his godsister – not that he would ever recognize her as such – and that they had sent her to the Muggle world when she was little because all the evidence pointed to her being a squib. He did not blame them for their actions; Merlin knew that squibs had no part in their world, and it would probably be easier on everyone if sending them to the Muggle world was more commonplace. That course of action had turned out to be flawed, but they had done the best they could with the information they had. Besides, if even  _Albus Dumbledore_  thought she was without magic, how were they possibly to know different?

So no, he did not blame them.  _They_  were not the ones who had caused Black to take Lestrange as her mother. The big question he and the Potters had was how she could have tricked the Ministry about her heritage; falsely claiming to be a member of a Noble House was line theft, a criminal offense, and trying that with an Ancient and Noble House like House Black would ordinarily see her sentenced to twenty years in Azkaban. The Blacks should have known that too, however, so the only way they would dare pull something like this was if they were sure that they would not be caught. His grandmother believed that they had paid Gringotts to put Black through a blood adoption, which he had to admit would account for the girl's purple eyes and explain why the goblins' magic showed her as being Lestrange's daughter, but none of the rest of them was sure that was truly the case.

He shook his head to get rid of his frustrating thoughts and dropped heavily into a chair by the fireplace, completing the semi-circle made by Danny, Ron, and Hermione. "Well, this year looks to be interesting," he remarked.

"You can say that again," replied Danny with a sigh. "Dad didn't say anything about him being our professor this year, and honestly, I'm not sure how well that's going to go. He's a great dad, don't get me wrong, but Mum was always the one who did the teaching."

Neville nodded; Lily had taught both of them at the same time throughout most of their childhoods, so he was well aware of his godbrother's concern. "Just remember that it could be worse. At least your dad won't have us sit around and listen to him talk like Quirrel and Lockhart, and he won't try to put us under the Imperius Curse like Moody."

"Don't remind me about them," Hermione grimaced. "This is our  _OWL year_. The last thing we need is an ineffective professor for Defense Against the Dark Arts. Recovering from wasting our first two years has been hard enough, thank you very much."

Ron rolled his eyes. "Hermione, you've probably been ready for these tests since last September."

"The OWLs determine what we careers we can qualify for after we graduate. Excuse me if I want to make sure I have plenty of options open to me—"

"Both of you,  _please_  stop," Danny moaned. "We have the whole year to get through before then, so can we put this argument off at least until January? Besides, with our luck, we'll have much bigger problems to worry about by the end of this year."

"You just  _had_  to jinx it, didn't you?"

* * *

"So we're all agreed?" Cedric asked, looking at the other five representatives seated at the table. Unlike the rest of Hogwarts, which depended entirely on the prefects to uphold order, Hufflepuff had a student council that handled the majority of intra-house business. Any issues that came up were first deliberated by the seven members, one from each year, before they passed the problems they could not solve themselves on to Professor Sprout.

Normally the council met once a month to discuss any pressing business, but the revelations about Jen that had come out that summer meant they needed to come to an agreement quickly. It was also why they were a member short; with the first-years arriving that very day, there was no time to explain the inner workings of Hufflepuff house and have them choose a representative from their number.

Two seats down, the fifth-year Hannah Abbott answered slowly, "Yes, I think we are. Unless Jen Black does something to make us think she is a danger, Hufflepuff house will not shun her."

 _That's as good as she'll get, I suppose_. "Very well. Unless there's any other business that needs to be taken care of immediately…?" No one volunteered anything, and he continued, "Then this meeting is adjourned. We'll reconvene at the end of the month for our normal meeting and the induction of our first-year member."

The rest of the council nodded as they left, leaving him alone in their reserved room. "And I thought I would have this much stress to deal with only  _after_  classes actually started," he groused to the empty chairs. Normally the first night of the new school year was a time for relaxing and catching up with friends he hadn't seen over the summer, not stopping a brewing storm directed at his youngest friend.

 _Then again, never before have I had a friend in this kind of situation._  Several of the other Badgers, the older students especially, had wanted to censure Jen as they had Potter the previous year; nothing physical like the pranks the Weasley twins liked to pull, but more ignoring the person, throwing out minor insults, and overall making it clear that his actions were not welcome. Those kind of sanctions did not sound like much at first, but when an entire quarter of the school was snubbing someone, the peer pressure could cause quite a bit of distress.

Potter had learned first hand what that felt like the previous year. By the time March had rolled around, he was avoiding the roving packs of Badgers altogether and double-checking in the library to make sure there weren't any Hufflepuffs gathering around him to voice their displeasure with his cheating to enter the Tournament.

 _In hindsight, we probably_ _ **did**_ _go a little overboard on that front_ , Cedric noted to himself ashamedly.  _It_ _'_ _s one thing to make him regret breaking the rules for a chance at glory; it_ _'_ _s quite another to actually make him concerned for his safety. I better talk to the others tomorrow and make it clear that his punishment ended with the final Task._

_Still, I_ _'_ _m glad I could talk Michaels out of trying to take her on. I get that he has a grudge against her mother, but_ _**she** _ _wasn_ _'_ _t the one who killed his grandfather and grandmother. Merlin, she hadn_ _'_ _t even been_ _**born** _ _then._

Thankfully, that sixth-year was the council member most against Jen, and if he decided he wanted to settle things with her himself, it was now limited to a personal conflict rather than a fight with the whole house. It was the least Cedric could do for her; after all, she had saved his life multiple times during the Tournament, not just in the graveyard where her actions had created the life debt formerly between them. Before the first Task, she had revealed that they were expected to steal a golden egg from a nesting mother dragon; without that little titbit of information, he would have walked into the arena without a single plan on how to  _survive_  the encounter, let alone complete the challenge. Then, during the Ravenclaw Task, she had overwhelmed the juvenile acromantulas that had tried to swarm him and Katie Bell, and furthermore she was willing to assist him in getting back to the maze's entrance instead of searching for whom she thought was her own hostage. What kind of friend could he call himself if he  _didn_ _'_ _t_  defend her?

And if Michaels did wind up challenging the fifth-year to an honor duel anyway? Well, Cedric just hoped they allowed enough time for him to buy a ticket. He had heard through the grapevine the previous year that Viktor Krum, in addition to being one of the best fliers Dumstrang had ever produced, was also a skilled duelist, and he had had the good fortune of watching a copy of Krum and Jen's duel during the Hufflepuff Task. Any fourth-year who could compete on near-equal ground with a seventh-year experienced in a fight was not someone  _he_  wanted to tangle with. Michaels, on the other hand…

Well, the other boy always had made boasts his wand couldn't back up.

 _At least I've done my part_ , he thought decisively.  _Bones and Finch-Fletchley are close to her, which is just further proof that she's a good friend if they'll give her a chance. It's just disappointing she was Sorted into Ravenclaw rather than Hufflepuff. With her sense of fair play, she'd fit right in with us here_.

* * *

Jen pushed open the door to her personal dorm, or at least the room that  _had_  been hers alone. Unlike last year, she was now going to be forced to bear with a roommate.

Thankfully, though, she knew she would be able to tolerate living with said individual.

"This will be interesting," Luna remarked, making her way to the bright orange trunk sitting at the foot the beds closer to the door. "I haven't had to share a room since my first term here. The girl I was with decided she would rather share space with two of the others than deal with me."

"I know the feeling; Brocklehurst told me on the first night last year that she was too comfortable with Li and Turpin to bother moving her stuff around." After checking that their door was securely locked, she flicked her left hand to open her own black oak chest and levitated her belongings to their proper places. Clothes in the wardrobe, books to the shelves, and her ritual kit to the bottom drawer of her desk where she could ward the hell out of it. Not only was it dangerous to keep her black magic tools where just anyone could stumble upon them, her precaution was also a bit of common courtesy to her roommate.

Luna had reacted…  _poorly_  the one time she had left her dagger out, and she had no desire to deal with that every day.

The blonde huffed while watching her unpack her trunk. "Life really isn't fair, is it? I'd do almost anything to be able to do wandless magic like that."

 _Go through a near-suicidal ritual, and maybe you can_. Finishing with her task, she asked, "Do you want me to help you with your things, too?"

"No, no, leave the mere mortal to use her hands for this." Luna hefted a large clay statue out of the space-extended compartment, the creature depicted looking like a cross between a dragon and an octopus, and stationed it next to her bedside table. The rest of the artwork she produced were likewise fanciful, even if they all had a disturbingly lifelike quality as well.

She shook her head and looked at her bed. The previous year, she had been able to splice the two beds together to give her a queen-sized; though she doubted Luna would mind her doing that again – she was well aware of the crush the little blonde was nursing for her – going full-speed after the younger girl now would take all the fun out of her plans for the year.

It had been a while since she tried her hand at a drawn-out seduction.

 _Of course, there are other ways to stay comfortable_. Clapping her hands together and slowly spreading them, she stretched the material of the bed wider until it was the size she was accustomed to. She then held onto the strands of the spell in one hand while using the other to etch a reflected nauthiz rune into the wood. A quick manipulation then had the loose ends of the transfiguration bound to the stability rune, using the free magic of the world to maintain her spell.

It was an interesting little trick she had found in one of her books over the summer. Since the footboard had been altered  _after_  the transfiguration, the rune would vanish once the spell fell apart, but when properly used it could also keep the bed in its new form for a longer period of time than just casting the spell. Unfortunately, this method could not be used to make inanimate transfigurations permanent; changing an object's structure induced a metaphysical stress that consumed ever more magic the longer it was kept up, and eventually the demand would exceed what the single rune she had carved could supply, causing her bed to revert to its original state.

Until that time, however, it meant a more pleasant sleeping space.

Luna had paused in her efforts to watch her roommate, and now her eyes narrowed in playful jealousy. "Just had to rub it in, didn't you?"

"If you're nice, maybe I'll do the same to yours tomorrow," she teased back. Checking her watch to find that they, along with Morag and Padma, had chatted until after midnight before they all split up for the night, she turned her back on the girl so Luna could not see her grin.  _Let the fun begin_. "For now, however, I think it's time I went to bed."

"Sure, I'll be going to sleep in just a couple— Jen!"

Her wicked grin grew wider as she straightened from her previous position, her trousers dangling from one hand. Considering she had not worn knickers since she was a young child, Luna had just gotten quite the eyeful. She twisted around to shoot the blonde an innocent sidelong look. "What? I was just changing."

"Just… warn me next time," Luna muttered, her flushed cheeks nearly hot enough to set her whole face alight. "And why didn't you get out your nightgown  _before_ doing that?"

She tugged off her blouse before tossing her clothes into the basket in the corner and stretching a bit; by now, Luna was quivering as if unsure whether to run away screaming or pounce on her. "Oh, I never told you, did I? I always sleep in the nude. It's a much more…  _pleasurable_  experience."

The younger girl's response sounded suspiciously like " _Meep_."

 _And that's enough for tonight. Give her one big hit to get her hooked, and then just keep stringing her along until she's as desperate as a junkie needing her next fix._ Slithering between the sheets, she faced the wall so that her smirk would not give the game away and waved her hand vaguely to dim the lights. "Good night, and sweet dreams."  _Especially the ones starring me._

"…Y-Yeah, good night."

* * *

A soft crack could be heard in the Ministry atrium, though there was no visible cause for the sound. The lone guard present, dressed in the navy robes common to the members of the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol, snatched his wand from his pocket and hastily cast a  _Lumos_  charm to light the dark room. Nothing. "Must have just been my imagination," the wizard eventually said as he returned his focus to his pocket.

That action left him utterly defenseless to the pale green spell that stole his life away.

"Idiot," Voldemort hissed quietly from under his invisibility cloak, one he had purchased in China decades earlier during his travels. He had hoped that the Ministry would be undefended as it normally was, but it seemed that he was not going to be  _that_  lucky this night. Jogging to the other end of the room, he vaulted over the welcome desk rather than step through the golden arch right next to it.

Freeing Rookwood from Azkaban this soon after his resurrection was already proving to be a good move. The Unspeakable had only been in his service for a year prior to his fall, and he had not had the chance to pick the man's brains for all the useful information the wizard had acquired over his years in the Department of Mysteries, a state of affairs he was now working to correct. One of the factoids he had learned today, for instance, was that the arch leading into the bowels of the Ministry would lock down the Floo and the designated Apparation area and alert the DMLE of an intruder should a wand not keyed into it pass through. Ministry workers had their wands added as a matter of course, and the entire reason visitors had to have their foci weighed was so that they could enter the building without setting off a constant stream of alarms.

 _And unfortunately, tonight I have to be especially careful. If I set off an alarm now, I_ _'_ _ll be up to my armpits in Aurors before I can say_ _'_ _busted_ _'_. He knew sneaking through the building was a risky proposition, especially now; he had stationed Gregory Goyle Sr. on the road leading to Azkaban after breaking out the imprisoned Death Eaters, and the man had returned at half past two to report that a mixed group of Aurors and Hit Wizards had appeared and rushed to the prison. He could only presume that that was in response to the guards, all of whom were long dead at that point, being unable to provide a routine check-in.

With the guards dead, the Death Eaters free, and the Dementors missing, the DMLE would be frantic as they looked for the cause of the breakout. Though neither of his ears in the Ministry had yet heard anything to indicate that they knew he was back, releasing his imprisoned soldiers was a pretty big hint. The DMLE would search the prison top to bottom for any clues, and it was for  _that_  reason that he was risking infiltrating the building tonight. So long as they were otherwise occupied, they would not leave behind the normal complement of security, which gave him the opportunity to track down the never-sufficiently-be-damned prophecy.

 _There's something to be said about killing multiple birds with one stone_ , he noted as the grille of the elevator opened in front of him.  _I regain my most loyal servants, take control of the Dementors,_ _ **and**_ _find out what secrets Dumbledore is intent on hiding from me – provided the information Severus gave me is correct, of course – and all with only a dozen deaths and a few hours' wait. I couldn't ask for a more productive day._

The elevator rattled to a stop, and a chipper female voice said,  _"Level nine, Department of Mysteries."_  The hallway ahead of him  _looked_  empty, or at least it did except for the slightest ripple in the air to one side; after another moment that waver parted slightly and allowed a pale face topped with red hair to be seen.

"Who's there?" the unknown wizard demanded, slipping his wand arm out of the security of the invisibility cloak. "Show yourself!"

 _One of the Order of the Phoenix?_ , Voldemort wondered.  _If so, I'm extremely disappointed._ _ **This**_ _is an example of the force Dumbledore assembled to stand against me? Their quality has diminished drastically during my time as a wraith_. He slipped just the tip of his wand through the edge of his own cloak and prepared to cast the Killing Curse again when a thought struck him.  _I can't trust the information Severus is giving me, not entirely at least, but another member of the Order should know just as much or possibly even more than my spy does. Why kill him now when I can first squeeze out all the information he is privy to?_

Instead of the Unforgivable he had planned to use, he whispered, " _Stupefy_." The stunner soared through the air like a scarlet lance and smashed into the middle of the other wizard's chest; the redhead did not have a chance to utter a single curse in response before dropping unconscious to the ground. Just as he was congratulating himself, though, the fallen Order member vanished without a trace.

 _Portkeys set to activate automatically upon their bearer's incapacitation? Not a bad precaution, you old bastard_ , Voldemort thought with grudging respect. Though the Order might be filled with incompetents, it seemed their leader was still clever as ever.

Pushing his irritation away, mostly because he just did not have the  _time_  to deal with it, he ran down the hallway, the black door at the end of the corridor opening on its own to let him through and then slamming shut behind him. The walls began to move, spinning faster and faster until the burning tapers were just streaks of blue on a black background, until after a few dizzying moments the identical doors slowed to a stop.

Normally this security feature would have disoriented anyone trying to break into the department, but once again having a former Unspeakable under his 'payroll' was paying dividends. He glanced up, noting the Ministry crest painted on the ceiling, and circled around the room until it was right-side-up from his perspective. He then found the door located two doorways to the right of the one directly in front of him and opened it.

 _'Dark and dusty'_  was his first impression. Rising in front of him were rows and rows of shelves, and each shelf was filled with numerous blue balls. There were entirely too many prophecies for him to search for them manually, but thankfully, he had a way to cheat. He laid his wand in his left palm and commanded, " _Point me_  prophecy about the Dark Lord Voldemort."

The wand spun in a lazy circle once, twice, before coming to a stop. Though the tip pointed further into the room, it did not  _feel_  like the spell had been successful. He took three quick steps to the side, and sure enough, the wand did not so much as twitch.  _Perhaps the prophecy isn't under my name?_ , he thought, though he was fairly certain it would have been. From the lines Severus had relayed to him, it was more likely to be under his name than Potter's. Nevertheless, he tried again. " _Point me_  prophecy about Danny Potter." Once again, the results were inconclusive.

 _This is odd. Maybe they're charmed so that a basic Four-Point Charm_ _ **can't**_ _find them._  " _Point me_  prophecy about the end of the world." Much to his ire, his wand immediately jerked around, pointing to each of the many, many orbs his spell was sniffing out.

 _This makes no sense; if the spell works, why can't I find the prophecy? Unless it's no longer here_ , he realized with a silent snarl.  _If it wasn't here, or even more, if someone_ _ **destroyed**_ _it, of course I wouldn't be able to find it. And since the only people who can remove a prophecy orb from its shelf are those named within, that means…_

"Dumbledore brought Potter to remove it and then spirited it away." Taking hold of his towering temper, Voldemort only barely managed not to hurl curse after curse at the shelves. Instead, he threw open the door leading to the rotating room and stormed inside. He had wasted his time – and worse, risked revealing rumors of his return to be true – and for  _nothing_. If this was Dumbledore's plan, the wrinkled bastard had succeeded magnificently.

The Dark Lord hissed under his breath as he furiously made his way back to the atrium and the Apparation zone, without even a single Ministry worker to provide a convenient target for his roaring fury.  _Laugh while you can, old man. Soon enough, I'll come for you, and your precious Boy-Who-Lived, too_.

* * *

**That should be the last of the "You're really Lestrange's daughter?" scenes; I hope so, anyway. It's important, and I'm sure it would be big news for months or even years after the reveal – which is the whole reason why I keep going over the same ground in the first place – but it's so** _**boring** _ **to write about again and again.**

**No, I haven't gone crazy; Neville truly does not look fondly on squibs and wants nothing to do with them. I know he was nothing like this in canon, and he probably had a soft spot for them in all honesty, but with his godparents still alive and taking an active role in raising him, this version of Neville did not grow up to be nearly so timid as he was in the books, so there was no reason for him to be constantly "tested" to see if he would display any magic ability. That means he also has no reason** _**not** _ **to internalize the dismissive view his relatives have towards squibs that caused his canon counterpart so much pain and suffering.**

**And yes, Voldemort did get a second scene in as many chapters. Apparently he thinks he's important or something.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	14. Modern History

**Gryphus:**  Voldemort's 'busted' comment was more of a joke than anything. As for the Four-Point Spell potentially being created by Hermione, I have two major problems with that: one, smart she may be, but I doubt she could come up with a brand new spell after only two years of Arithmancy; and two, if she  _were_ capable of making new spells that early, why the hell didn't she arm the D.A. with some in fifth year, or even just Harry and her during the camping trip? It wasn't like she didn't have the time.

 **Disclaimer:**  Did Dumbledore keep Binns on staff, even though his being a ghost meant that he probably didn't keep track of historical developments that had occurred after his death? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 14  
** **Modern History**

"Just once, I'd like to have a bit of a break," Sirius growled as he vanished a rotten crossbeam and levitated its replacement into position. "No sicknesses, no kidnappings, no covering up illegal adoptions, no fifteen-year-olds dressing up like bloody  _Morgana_  in front of the entire Wizengamot…

"And  _definitely_  no mass-murdering psychos breaking out of prison!"

"That's ironic. We said almost the same thing when the  _Prophet_  reported that  _you_  had escaped Azkaban," retorted Andi with a snort. A wave of her wand had the wood secured in place, and they continued on to the next thing that needed to be fixed.

He sighed. "I'm all for a good joke, but even  _I_  know when to be serious. And no, that wasn't a pun," he quickly added before his cousin could say anything. "If you have any  _useful_  suggestions, please tell me. I just can't figure out what we're going to do about all this."

Today was already shaping up to be a bad day. The morning's  _Prophet_  had sent the three Blacks into horrified silence; finding out that the entirely of the thirteenth floor of Azkaban prison, the same level he had spent a dozen years in and that held the most vile of offenders, had somehow been emptied was enough to induce nightmares in anyone who had lived through the War. The disappearance of nearly all of the guards made it look like an inside job, and the DMLE had already said that they were conducting an investigation into the whereabouts of the eight missing wizards, but Dumbledore was sure that this had actually been the official opening volley of the new war with Voldemort.

 _I can't disagree with him on that point, either. It makes perfect sense; eleven Death Eaters were locked up on that floor, and if we discount Wormtail, all of them were his most dangerous and most fanatical. Bellatrix, the Lestranges, Rookwood, Rowle, Travers… Any one of them would drastically increase his firepower, but_ _ **all**_ _of them? And then at the meeting this morning, Dumbledore said that Arthur was stunned by an invisible enemy while he was guarding the Department of Mysteries. Was it an Unspeakable, noticing that he was there when he shouldn't have been? A guard making his rounds? Or was it really Voldemort hitting his_ _ **second**_ _target of the day?_  A shiver ran down his back at that thought. If it truly  _was_  the Dark Lord, it meant that all the Order's time spent guarding the prophecy was for naught.

Voldemort now knew the entire truth.

"The war's heating up, the Death Eaters are as strong as they ever were, and I'm here fixing up a dance hall for a party I don't even want to host!"

"And you think  _we_  did?" Narcissa asked in a droll tone as she came down the hall from the other end. "Letting every member of the Wizengamot, their heirs – most of whom are uncouth little beasts, I'll have you know – and the heads of the Ministry departments into our house so they might go where they wished because the 'random' lottery chose us to host the Solstice Ball that particular year? At least Black Hall is separate from Grimmauld Place;  _three different times_  I caught wizards pawing through my bedroom in Malfoy Manor."

 _Ugh. I suppose she does have a point. There's no way anyone can use this place to sneak into our real home_. The Blacks had not always lived in their townhouse in the heart of London; in fact, that was actually a relatively recent development. Before then, they had an actual  _castle_  as their place of residence, and when the family grew too large for everyone to fit, they had expanded into the neighboring countryside. Unfortunately, not even that had been enough protection; in 1666, their feud with the now-extinct House Maddox had boiled over to the point that the sons of Lord Adam Maddox, one of whom had been a curse-breaker, had led an attack on their estate that cost them nearly half of their family before the rest had been able to escape, and not even the centuries-old fortress had survived.

That was not to say that the Maddox held the upper hand for very long. The Lord Black at the time, Procyon Black, had invited their enemies to a warehouse on the shores of the River Thames for a parley, and once all the adult Maddox wizards and witches were present, the Blacks, none of whom were actually inside the building, had thrown up the anti-Apparation wards and set off the Gubraithian fire-pits hidden inside, roasting their enemies alive. Unfortunately, the conflagration spread beyond their ability to control, and it wound up destroying several hundred acres of London before the Muggles had managed to put it out.

After getting rid of their enemies, the Blacks had then decided to turn the situation to their advantage. Diagon Alley had thankfully been spared from the destruction they had accidentally set loose, so it was no trouble to purchase large tracts of land and build another home in the midst of the Muggle reconstruction. The country estate was not entirely abandoned; though it had been made clear that living in the middle of nowhere made security more difficult, they  _were_  able to use it to house the new Black Hall, a building that was designed very much like a contemporary manor house except for its utter lack of living facilities.

This building, the same one Sirius, Andi, and Narcissa were currently repairing, was purely for social functions.

"Disgusting," Andromeda remarked, oblivious to his mental detour. "I am normally a forgiving person, but I hope you taught them the error of their ways, sister dear."

The piebald witch smirked cruelly. "Oh, most certainly. The last I heard, one of them was still so afraid of the thought of a naked woman that he has refused to send any marriage contracts in favor of staying with his cute little boy toy."

"You don't mean Scion Lindsay by any chance, do you?" Andi clarified with a raised eyebrow. "I had wondered what happened to him. According to the rumors, practically overnight he changed from a consummate playboy to… well, the way he is now."

"Yes, thank you, please continue this conversation once I'm no longer in earshot." Shaking his head, Sirius then asked, "What are we going to do about Bellatrix? Now that Voldemort has her back in his grasp, she can lead him straight to us. I was… tempted to go to Dumbledore and ask for help setting up a Fidelius Charm," he admitted sheepishly, "but I wanted to get your input before I did anything. This affects all of us, after all."

"I wouldn't worry about Bella mounting an attack on us," Narcissa said with a sad smile. "She can't do that."

He quirked one eyebrow. "Oh? Do explain."

"I don't know if it was supposed to be a punishment or a security measure or what, but Great-Uncle Arcturus went to see her not long after she was sentenced to Azkaban. When I asked him why he was there, he told me that he had Obliviated any memories that someone could potentially use against us. Addresses, connections, secret alliances, basically everything from the way he put it." The youngest of the Black Sisters shrugged. "While she may still remember what Grimmauld looks like inside and our childhood trips there, she shouldn't be able to return."

"That's… better, I suppose," he admitted eventually. It was a much colder move than he would have ever made against a member of the family, but considering the kind of person the prior Lord Black had been, Bellatrix probably should have counted her lucky stars that his grandfather had not wiped out her memory in its entirety. "If only we could do that to Cuff and Skeeter."

"Don't worry. We'll find  _something_  we can use against them."

Unfortunately, he was not quite as optimistic as Narcissa was. He wanted,  _needed_ , to make sure the  _Daily Prophet_  understood that their House's business was off-limits for Skeeter and her gossiping ilk, but no matter how much he tried, he could not think of a way to do that. The Black family owned the actual land a large section of Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley were built on – in fact, the rents from those properties made up a hefty chunk of their income – but the  _Prophet_ 's office was not in that section of the Alley. He had checked the laws multiple times, but since Skeeter had not said anything untrue, he could not sic Ted on her for libel. Nor could he buy the paper's favor; their subsidy from the Ministry meant they weren't exactly hurting for money. Whatever weakness they had was, at least for the moment, unknown to him.

 _Much as I hate to admit it, this would be so much easier if I were Dark_ , he mentally sighed. He had a good idea how Arcturus would have dealt with the situation. Implied threats against both the business itself and the people running it; subtle reminders that in any legal battle the  _Prophet_  tried to wage, the Blacks had enough money to outlast them; buying their way into Fudge's good graces so that the Minister would pass on their message for them. Such things were not the Light way, however, and despite how tempting those easy and effective methods would be, Sirius was wary of stepping onto that slippery slope. His worst nightmare, at least from a philosophical perspective, was waking up one morning and discovering that rather than changing their House, the history of their family had changed  _him_.

He  _refused_  to be like his father and grandfather before him. No, he would bring the House of Black out of the darkness that had corrupted them for so long. If only it were not so easy to see why their ancestors had become Dark in the first place…

Searching for something to lighten the now extremely depressing mood that had fallen over them, he commented, "I just wish he could have spent that much care making sure that this place wasn't falling apart."

"That's… actually a good point," Andi said, glancing back down the hallway they had been working on. "When was the last time anyone used this place, anyway?"

There was silence for a moment as the three Blacks glanced at each other, each hoping someone else had the answer. Finally, Narcissa said, "Well, I suppose that explains why Great-Uncle didn't have Kreacher care for Black Hall, too."

"Trust me, that's a good thing," Sirius said with a bark-like laugh. "I had to clean out Grimmauld. If Kreacher had been here, it would be even  _worse_."

* * *

 _This truly is a nice spot_ , Jen thought with a nod.  _I should come out here more often, while there are still sunny days to look forward to_.

The particular location she was considering was a small depression on the castle grounds, on the opposite side of the Black Lake and at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Trees and a few small boulders created a natural wall to afford her privacy, not to mention framing a corridor to channel a cool breeze. In winter, she was sure that it would be dreadful, filled with snow and at the mercy of biting winds, but she had until October before she needed to worry about that.

_Besides, that's what magic for. It shouldn't be too hard to adjust an umbrella charm to keep snow out as well as rain; tie that and a warming charm to a couple of runes to keep them going, and this wouldn't be a bad retreat all year round._

_Okay Jen, focus. That's not why you're out here_. Realizing that she needed to get back to work, she once again raised a finger into the air. She huffed a bit as she concentrated on her desire, and then her hand descended and the natural magical currents of the planet swirled in her finger's wake. Her movements were exceedingly carefully as she sketched a rune not into stone or flesh or even air, but in the very fabric of reality itself.

This alone was enough to convince her that finagling Ingrid Eberhardt's notes from a proper Dark Arts class was the right decision. Some of the topics discussed in the lectures were simple enough: lawful applications of dark magic, a few dueling tactics that could only work when one had spells that could pass through shield charms, and a detailed breakdown on various dark creatures. Then there were the  _interesting_ topics, of which runic casting was only one example. By 'carving' the rune into the streams of power that traversed the globe, a clever witch could lay down charms anywhere she wanted without devoting her mind – and more importantly, her wand – to maintaining it. With enough time to prepare, someone could erect powerful shields and still be able to attack at will.

There was some tradeoff, of course. Unlike traditional runes, runic casting still required power from the witch herself rather than leaching off the planet's infinite reserve, and sketching arcane symbols into the air could only produce the effects one could expect of regular runes rather than the vast array of true spells, but nevertheless the multitasking one could then employ with this little bit of  _'dark magic'_  more than made up for its deficits. Jen did not benefit as much from this as a normal wand-waving witch would – she could already launch two spells at once, one from each hand, and with effort she could maintain a third through sheer concentration – but still she saw numerous applications opening up before her.

"Hey, Jen? Why are the—" Behind her, Luna poked her head out from between the trees and stopped to stare at the rune floating in the air. "Wow. That's really pretty."

Was it? The dark witch turned her eyes to look at the translucent symbol as it shimmered in a multitude of colors. "I suppose it is." A chittering sound heralded a squirrel leaping into the clearing. "And it works as it's supposed to, too."

The mannaz rune was a rather odd duck in comparison to the rest of the Futhark. Rather than radiating magic outwards like the other Norse runes, it focused its energy and effect  _inwards_. For the vast majority of spells, that property was a hindrance, but for charms targeting the caster, such as the magical beacon she had cast, the so-called  _'self'_  or  _'inner world'_ rune worked perfectly.

The blonde sucked daintily on her bottom lip as her eyes flicked between Jen and the animal. "Why do I get the feeling that you're gathering woodland creatures for a decidedly less than child-friendly purpose?"

"Because you know me better than that?"

"Oh. I actually kind of hoped I was wrong." Luna entered the depression fully and flopped down next to her. The squirrel, strangely acting without any kind of fear whatsoever, scurried closer until it was only a couple of feet away from them. "Okay, I have to ask. What  _are_  you going to do with him?"

"What I'm  _hoping_  to do is get this spell to work," she groused, waving one hand at the sheets of parchment laying in her lap. "It was in one of the books in the library at home, but while the incantation and wand motions are useless to me, it  _did_  have the arithmancy formula written down. That's why I was in the library most of yesterday; I was going through spells I already know to see if I could match up portions of their formulae with this one so I could at least have  _some_ idea about how it's supposed to be structured."

That was without a doubt the worst part about being the only true wandless caster she had ever heard of. Since every single other person used a different method than she did, she normally either had to observe someone casting a spell and learn from that, modify an existing spell to suit her circumstances, or come up with something completely new on her own. She had used all three of those strategies throughout her life, but with a spell this finicky and delicate, she did not want to try any more experimentation than she was already doing.

"That doesn't sound too hard," the younger girl said. "What's been happening when you've tried casting it so far?"

"All sorts of things, none of which are what I wanted. I can now definitively say that a melting squirrel smells worse than a burning rabbit, though," she replied in a deadpan tone.

Luna opened and closed her mouth wordlessly a few times in surprise. Finally, she managed, "And just what is this spell  _supposed_  to do?"

"Instantly tame wild animals." That was a lie, but as far as Jen could see, Luna really did  _not_  need to know the actual purpose of the curse. What she was attempting was not technically black magic, but it wasn't far off, either. "After Tracey brought up restarting my little  _'introduction club'_  from last year, I thought I could give the new first-year Ravenclaws and Slytherins a class pet of sorts." She flicked her fingers to weave the magic and sent the jet of pale pink, almost white, light at the squirrel. "Unfortunately, it isn't working as I hoped."

After watching the creature stiffen for a moment before relaxing again, the blonde turned back to her. "I thought you said everything you tried killed them."

"I didn't say that, though it is true," she muttered back. Holding out her hand, she crooned, "Come on. Come here." The squirrel stared at her for a moment before scampering over and jumping onto her outstretched hand.

_Well, I'd call that spell structure a success. And about time, too._

"Ah, he's cute," Luna cheered as she stuck out her finger. Rather than bite as it would have been wont to do not a minute earlier, the squirrel latched on to the proffered digit with its tiny forepaws. "Hey, if the kids don't want him, can I keep him?"

"Sure. I won't have any use for him." Sending the woodland creature to perch on Luna's shoulder, Jen frowned. "What was it you were saying when you got here? You were asking a question."

"Hmm? Oh, yeah. That. I was just wondering why you had the Weasley twins hanging up in midair by their ankles, not to mention why they were blind and deaf," Luna answered distractedly.

"They tried to sneak up on me. Considering the glares I've been getting from the Lions and that they had their wands out, not to mention yesterday's news about the Azkaban breakout, I decided not to take any chances." Thankfully, it was only the Gryffindors who were causing problems; the Hufflepuffs were by and large wary but otherwise treated her the same, and she had noticed more than a few Slytherins watching her at meals, but otherwise things were basically the same they had been before everyone left for the summer.  _And once again I'm filled with joy that I had a whole year to let people form their opinions about me before the identity of my new mother had the chance to sway their thinking._

Gathering her notes, she stood and helped her friend up. The pair picked their way through the trees, coincidentally ending up next to the topic of their conversation. The redheads were dangling as if from invisible ropes, their outstretched hands not even half a foot from the ground, and judging by their matching frowns, neither brother was happy with their current circumstances. At least they were quiet now; when she first hoisted them up, they had made such a racket that she silenced them both so she could concentrate on her casting.

"You probably should let them down," Luna suggested. "I think being upside down is just attracting more wrackspurts."

 _Wrackspurts_ _…_ _Those are the insect-like things that represent confusion, right? I suppose all the blood rushing to their head_ _ **would**_ _cause a few problems._  She waved her hand at the pair, snipping a few threads of the spells enmeshing them. "There, it should wear off in five, ten minutes. Plenty of time for us to leave the scene of the crime.

"I need to find a cage for that little guy, too, I guess," she muttered to herself. As vital as hiding the truth about her experiment was, she could not help but think that it had just backfired on her.

* * *

"So what does today look like?" Jen asked as she and Luna took seats at the Ravenclaw table. She could have simply summoned a schedule for herself – unlike Gryffindor and Slytherin, where McGonagall and Snape passed out each student's personal schedule individually, Flitwick and Sprout set the forms out in stacks for each year and expected them to figure out when their classes were for themselves – but breakfast, and more importantly the hot pots of tea, were calling her. The previous night had not been for sleeping; instead she had waited until her roommate was asleep and slipped out through the window to double check that the dark magic she had been busily recreating worked as it was supposed to.

Morag shook her head. "It's a full day, unfortunately. Snape and that Umbridge woman in the morning, then after lunch it's Divination or Runes, your dad, and McGonagall."

" _Don_ _'_ _t_  call him my  _'_ _dad_ _'_ ," she snarled quietly over the lip of her newly drained teacup, though judging by the Scottish girl's flinch, the amount of venom in her voice more than made up for the lack of volume. "He is my  _father_ , as his seed was necessary for my conception, but  _'_ _dad_ _'_  implies a far closer relationship than I have or  _want_  to have with him."

Padma and Morag shared confused and concerned glances, and Luna watched her in unashamed curiosity. Finally, Padma broached, "I have a feeling I'm going to regret this, but what exactly happened between you two? Because for you to be that angry with him… This sounds pretty serious, not just you being brassed off because he wasn't there to—"

"Padma, you're a good friend, so I'm warning you. You do  _not_  want to finish that sentence." Jen took a deep breath and let it out slowly; the only one of her friends who knew the truth of her parentage was Tracey, so for the others, she was sure she was displaying an uncalled-for degree of hatred. There was no way she would reveal that to them, especially not at the breakfast table where anyone could overhear, but was there a way to deflect their curiosity instead? "The details of the situation are going to stay private, but suffice it to say that shortly after finding out that I was around, he expressed some opinions that cannot be taken back and that I cannot find it in my heart to forgive. That is all I have to say on the subject," she finished, taking a large bite of egg to give herself something to do as much as to reinforce her proclamation.

"Was it about you being like your— Shutting up now," Morag hastily amended when she flicked her eyes to the girl.

She swallowed and thought carefully about what to say next. "Morag, Padma, Luna," she added, shooting a look to the blonde who had thankfully remained silent thus far, "I really,  _really_  don't want to start our first week back with a fight. Can we  _please_  drop this now? Preferably down a twenty-foot hole that we all immediately and completely forget about?"

The two other fifteen-year-olds hesitated a beat before nodding. She then turned to Luna, who was watching the space over her left shoulder rather intently. "Anything interesting that you're looking at?"

"Your twillcks are quite agitated at the moment, snapping at the conskilps on your head," the blonde replied in the airy voice that they had all come to realize over the previous year was her attempt at a disinterested tone. "They also have a rather broad vocabulary, though I believe little of it is fit for polite conversation."

 _Ah, I had completely forgotten that she can see and listen to my mental probes, even when they aren't digging into people's heads._  Luna rarely mentioned those particular manifestations, and once again she was thankful that the younger witch still did not realize what her family's gift really was. While Legilimency was not illegal or even restricted, few people were comfortable with the idea that someone they knew could peruse their memories and thoughts at a whim.  _Conskilps are a new one, though. Anger, perhaps?_

"I'll try to teach them to watch their mouths around impressionable youth, then," she answered before dedicating her attention back to the meal. Once that was done, it was time to depart for the first class of their very full day. Potions.

On their way down to the dungeons where the Potions classroom awaited, Jen could not help but wonder what this morning would hold. The previous September, Snape had at first been extremely antagonistic when he thought she was Sirius's daughter. Once she assured him that that was not the case, he had treated her with the kind of basic courtesy she would normally expect from a professor addressing a student who took his class seriously. He had warmed up to her over the year, however, as evidenced by him brewing the scar-reducing potion that had given her back her sight.

How far would her progress be set back now that it had been revealed that while she was not Sirius's flesh and blood, she was still the progeny of one of his childhood tormentors?

The Ravenclaws entered the room, and right behind them followed the Hufflepuffs. Once they had all taken their places and the clock chimed half past the hour, the dour Potions Master entered the room and slammed the door.

"Settle down," he said unnecessarily. The assembled students, already totally silent, focused even harder. "For any of you who somehow  _doesn't_  know this already, at the end of this year you will take a very important examination, during which you will prove how much you have learned about the composition, production, and application of magical potions. For most, this means that we will soon be saying goodbye to each other, but for the very best of you"—Snape's black eyes flicked across the room at specific people, and unless Jen was very much mistaken, they rested on her for an instant—"there will be a seat waiting in my NEWT class that I expect to be filled.

"Now, I am aware that I am not considered the most…  _accommodating_  of teachers," he ground out, "but for the past eleven years, I have not had a single class where more than a quarter of the students failed to pass their Potions OWL. I expect the same or better from this class, or you can be assured that you will suffer my… displeasure."

He turned to the blackboard and waved his wand, chalk dust from years of use coalescing into words. "For today's assignment, you will be brewing Morrison's Draft. Though it is not on the OWL syllabus, it will serve as a useful measure of your current skills. Instructions are on the board; ingredients are in the cabinets. You have until the end of the period."

At their table, Jen, Susan, and Justin laid out their ingredients and began the tedious process of chopping, dicing, and skinning.  _Morrison's Draft, huh?_ , she thought after she had organized the various components. Seeing Snape passing by, she quietly asked, "Professor? I'm not familiar with this potion. What does it do?"

Over the previous year, she had noticed that while the wizard was quick to curtail pointless chatter, he would answer intelligent questions provided they were quiet enough that they did not disturb anyone else. She hoped that would continue to be the case.

Sure enough, he stopped to sweep his gaze over the entire room before turning back to answer her at the same soft volume. "Morrison's Draft has no practical purpose; it is purely a teaching tool. Each stage of the potion has a specific color and consistency, and the various ways each stage can be compromised, as well as how multiple errors affect one another, are well documented. This allows for you to determine where, and from there why, you made any mistakes." His explanation finished, he resumed his circuit through the room.

By the time Snape called time, Jen was less than entirely pleased. At step fourteen of the twenty-step process, she realized that her potion had not lightened to the orange shade Susan's had taken, instead remaining stubbornly red. The color had disappeared gradually as she continued working, but there was still a visible tinge to the otherwise clear concoction. Mean as it was, she took a little comfort that it was at least not the black tar that had congealed in Justin's cauldron, nor was it spitting multicolored sparks like Luna's.

"At this point, your potions should be indistinguishable from water, with a fine silver sand at the bottom. Whose potion looks like this?" Only three students raised their hands, but to their surprise, the ordinarily demanding teacher did not immediately lambast the rest of them. "I hoped for better, but I suppose this is acceptable at the moment. Last year's class did not have a single person from all four houses succeed. For the rest of you, your homework is to look up your potion's appearance in the Morrison's Draft result table – you can find it in  _Advanced Potion-Making_ , several copies of which are in the library – and then write a report about what stage you messed up on, what that mistake was, and what your potion looked like at the end. There is not a defined length, but I will be grading for appropriate detail."

He waved his wand again, calling vials out of the cabinet and distributing them amongst the students. "Bottle and label your potions, then get out."

 _Great_ , she mentally griped, her mood not helped by Susan's playful smirk as the Badger ladled out a perfect potion.  _At least I don_ _'_ _t have to answer to Elsie about this. She_ _'_ _d have my head for screwing up. Possibly literally._

* * *

The History of Magic class had changed rooms, Jen noted while they trudged their way up to the third floor, a floor above where the rest of her year was used to. As they walked, the congregated Ravens and Badgers speculated about what their newest professor would be like. Some said Umbridge would be just as boring as Binns but would not allow them to sleep in class; others insisted that  _no one_  could be as bad as the ghost.

Honestly, she hoped the latter group were right. The previous year she had simply not bothered going after the first class, and by June, only half of their combined houses, mostly the Hufflepuffs, still attended at all.

Abbott was the first one to reach the door, and she peaked in carefully before opening the door and letting others in before her. Jen glanced over at Susan, whom she knew was rather close to the blonde Puff, and the redhead explained, "Her father works at the Ministry, and Umbridge scared her when she was little. Now she can't stand to stay in the same room with her if she can help it, and definitely not alone."

She smiled mournfully.  _Ah, the joys of childhood trauma. Gotta love it_.

True to Susan's impression, Umbridge sat primly behind the desk at the front of the room, her bright pink cardigan and broad smile doing little to distract from her girth. After everyone had taken a seat and pulled out their quills and parchment, she pushed herself out of the chair. "Good morning, class."

A few people gave muttered replies to that, but while the rotund witch's left eye twitched a bit, she did not voice her obvious frustration. "As Headmaster Dumbledore told you a couple of days ago, I am Dolores Umbridge, your new History of Magic professor. Some of you I already know from my previous position in the Ministry, but as a result of several discussions between Dumbledore and the Ministry, it was decided that the status quo of how History has been taught is no longer acceptable. As such, I will be doing my best to ensure that all of you leave my class with at least  _some_  knowledge of history beyond the wars that occurred in this country over the centuries.

"Before we begin today's lesson, does anyone have any questions? Yes, Mr. Hopkins."

"Just a bit of personal curiosity, but I was wondering what the qualifications were for teaching this class." The smile plastered on Umbridge's face slipped off, and Wayne Hopkins swiftly backtracked at the glare taking its place. "I-I mean, most of the professors here are Masters in their subject, but there isn't a Mastery in History, or even a NEWT, so…"

Umbridge resumed her somewhat pleasant expression, but Jen could not help but notice that the emotion did not reach her eyes.  _Not that I blame her for that; if some little shit had just tried to cast doubt on_ _ **my**_ _credentials my first day at a new job, he_ _'_ _d regret it_. "Ah, I think I see now. Tell me, do you know what the pass-rate is for the History of Magic OWL?"

"Er, maybe fifty percent?" he tentatively offered.

"Try thirty-five." The class muttered for a few moments at that flatly delivered proclamation, and Umbridge began pacing in front of them. "This is the  _only_  class that has fewer passes than Divination, which for your information  _does_  fail half its students. Ten percent of students score an E, and only two percent achieve an O." She looked directly at Hopkins again. "In case you were wondering, I was one of that top two percent, and unlike many of my fellows in that group, I have continued my studies in the subject. There are few in this entire  _country_  who are better equipped to teach this class than I am."

After a few moments, Michael Corner slowly raised his hand, and the squat witch nodded to him. "Not to say this is in any way your fault, Professor, but the letters this year did not mention what textbook you wanted us to buy. Will we still be using _A History of Magic_ , or do we need to owl-order something else?"

"I do apologize for that inconvenience; the discussions over how to improve the course did not end until after the Hogwarts letters were sent out. That is a good question, however, and a useful segue into today's lecture." Umbridge pulled out a rather short wand and tapped the board behind the desk, causing shimmering green letters to write themselves on the black slate and list a number of objectives. "Because you all are already in your fifth year, we don't exactly have much time to better prepare you for the OWL. Therefore, we will be concentrating on what you will see most.

"By necessity, the biggest chunk of the exam pertains to war, specifically the assorted goblin wars, but I know you have all covered those  _ad nauseum_ , so please correct me if I'm wrong in assuming that you want to hear nothing more about them." The rest of the room chuckled at that. "I thought so. The next largest section, however, is the development of the modern Ministry of Magic, which is coincidentally my primary area of interest. For the next ten months, this is what you will be studying, and if you pay attention, my hope is that we can at least surpass Divination in passes.

"You asked about books, Mr. Corner," she continued, "and the simplest answer is that there won't be any. I practically guarantee that everything about the Ministry's rise that you will be asked about I will discuss in this class, and more besides. If you take detailed enough notes, you'll have everything you need." The class turned stunned expressions towards her; from what Jen understood, the other Ravens had spent the past four years learning history almost entirely from the assigned textbook. The loss of that security net obviously disconcerted several of them. Umbridge seemed to notice this and continued, "That said, if you still wish for a book with which to verify your notes and look up further information, speak with me after class and I will give you the titles I'm using as references. Anything else?"

An idea sprang to Jen's mind, and she raised her hand. "You said that our notes would be sufficient for the exam. To that end, are we permitted to use DictaQuills in this class?"

Umbridge blinked at that question before shrugging. " _How_  you take your notes is your prerogative. As long as it does not disturb the class and you pay attention while it transcribes, I'll allow it."

"Thank you, Professor," she replied with a smile, replacing the eagle feather on her desk with the bronze quill she had in her bag. After being blind for so long and only just now readjusting to physically writing, recording everything Umbridge would say was well beyond what her current speed would allow. She was used to memorizing what she heard, but a backup copy would put her mind at ease.

"Now, if there's nothing else, we will begin our journey through history in the mid-fifth century, when King Arthur of Camelot approached Merlin for suggestions about how to avoid a revolt by the wizards living in the lands he had newly conquered…"

**Silently Watches out.**


	15. Defending One's Self Interests

**Guardian of Azarath, U-233:**  The issue with Jen cursing Voldemort using his soul jar right now is that, when using sympathetic magic offensively, the piece of the victim one uses is generally destroyed in the process. Jen doesn't want to use up her  _single_  sample of Voldie's soul when he still has others lying around that would allow him to be reborn  _again_. In addition, ritual magic relies heavily on the time of year, and at this point in time white magic and the Light Powers are still ascendant, so she runs the very large risk of having her ritual fail and suffering the subsequent backlash if she tries anything now. She'd wait until  _at_ _least_  after the autumnal equinox, when the Light Powers have lost enough strength and the Dark Powers have gained enough that dark magic has the upper hand.

Besides, I have  _other_  plans for it in the not-too-distant future…

**Special shoutout to Ranch14 for being** _**Black Princess Ascendant'** _ **s 1,000th reviewer! Also, this is your mandatory "squick alert". The last scene isn't exactly** _**nice** _ **.**

**Disclaimer:**  Were multiple electives scheduled for the same time period, inconveniencing everyone who was not vital to the plot and therefore did not have access to a Time-Turner? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 15  
** **Defending One's Self-Interests**

" _Finally_  that class is going to get fun!"

"Yes, Morag, we know. You've only said it  _five times_ since we left Runes," Jen sighed with a roll of her eyes. She could understand the Scottish girl's enthusiasm – memorizing a bunch of foreign symbols was incredibly boring if one did not also learn how to use them – but enough was enough. The whole class had been happy that Babbling would at long last teach how to activate the runes they drew, yet she did not see any of them  _other_  than Morag harping on about it.

 _Maybe I'm being a bit harsh, though? After all, Elsie showed me how to use the Futhark runes when she was teaching them to me, so this isn't something new and exciting for me._  Because a sizable portion of the class apparently did not continue on with Ancient Runes in their NEWT years, it made sense that they would be instructed on the practical aspects of the class; it was not something they had to know for the exam, but it would entice some who were still debating about it to return the following year. It was probably the same reason they spent their fifth year learning Egyptian hieroglyphs, the principle language for erecting wards. Thinking on the matter for another moment, she mentally shrugged.  _Then again, I do have_ _ **something**_ _to look forward to. If everyone is practicing turning on their rune scripts, it will give me an excuse to practice without having to sneak around on my own time, even if that does take half the fun out of it._

"There's no need to be mean, Jen," Luna chastised. "We understand that you aren't looking forward to our next class, but you shouldn't take it out on us. We weren't the ones who hired your father."

"My  _sincerest_  apologies."

Padma – who, not taking Runes, had joined up with them a few minutes earlier from the library – and Morag both snickered at the sarcasm dripping from her words, and she waved for one of them to open the door to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Stepping inside, she fought to keep her surprise from showing.

When Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody taught the previous year, the room had been organized much like all the others in the school: tables wide enough to seat two arranged in neat rows and chairs behind them facing the front of the room, where there had been a desk the grizzled man had sat at while he lectured to them. Now, however, the desks were gone, the chairs lined up against the walls, and in the middle of the otherwise empty space was a large, low-slung table, with a couple of inches of sand held between the walls reaching above the surface. Interestingly, the sand was soaked through with magic, and poking at the fabric of the spell, she admitted in the privacy of her own mind it was an intriguing setup. The grains had been charmed to stick together without needing water to moisten them, not enough to form a solid surface, but if she were in the mood, she was sure she could create a truly awesome sand castle.

Other students had already arrived and started choosing seats, naturally dividing themselves so that Lions were on one side of the room and Ravens on the other. Jen and her contingent joined their housemates, and after that it was just a matter of waiting for the next several minutes as the rest of their class trickled in and ignoring that not a few of the Gryffindors were periodically shooting her icy looks. She almost shook her head in disappointment; did they think she had not already realized they were displeased with her?

And more importantly, did they think she really cared?

The clock rang two, yet their  _illustrious_  teacher failed to appear. One minute passed, then two, and other Ravenclaws glanced at each other in concern. Before he could make an even worse impression to the assembled fifth-years, James Potter threw the door to his office open and gave them all a sheepish smile. "Sorry about that, folks; there were some last-minute things I had to do that couldn't wait.

"So," he said, clapping his hands together, "welcome to Defense Against the Dark Arts. In some ways, this is the most important class you will take in Hogwarts; Herbology and Charms and Astronomy are all well and good, and I have to give Transfiguration its due, but if you ever wind up facing someone who wants you hurt or, Merlin forbid, even dead, it is the things you take from  _this_  class that will save your skin.

"And there's the exams at the end of the year that you want to do well on, too," he added as an afterthought.

Jen did not even try to keep her eyes from rolling at that, and she easily felt the disgruntled fidgeting from the rest of her house.  _It's not a_ _ **bad**_ _speech_ , she had to admit, even if only to herself,  _but it loses something when it seems targeted to the Gryffindors in particular. Now that honor duels are outlawed, most people go their entire lives without ever having to take up a wand to defend themselves; examined from that light, the exams that he's essentially blowing off are_ _ **far**_ _more important than really learning to fight._

"Because of all that, this class is going to be a bit different than what you're used to. We'll work on learning the various spells you'll need for the OWL, of course, but most of our time is going to be spent on  _tactics_." The sand in the platform sprang to life, forming two little sandmen, one red and one black, inside a narrow corridor. The black model crept closer to the red one's back and raised a small protrusion of sand that Jen supposed was meant to represent a wand, but then the red caricature whirled around and jabbed its own wand at the walls hemming them in. A third wall grew into place between the two, allowing the red man to escape to the end of the path unmolested.

"Now, most of our discussions will be a  _little_  more detailed than this, of course," James said with a gleaming grin as he waved his wand and dissolved the models, "but this is a good example of what we'll be doing. I have a number of real, historical scenarios that we'll run through; some of them are from the war with You-Know-Who, some are from the Grindelwald war, and there are various others from major conflicts across the globe. We'll be looking at what the valiant heroes did to defend themselves and their charges, what plans worked, and – more importantly – what  _didn't_  work.

"I know this is nothing like what you've ever done before, but I thought it would be good for all of you to start thinking about what all you  _can_  do with magic instead of going through the same things over and over again without ever considering how you'd apply them in real life," he concluded with a shrug. "Are there any questions?"

Stephen Cornfoot raised a hand, and when James nodded at him, he asked, "While this is new and exciting and all, I can't help but think it a bit… odd. It's almost like you want to  _prepare_  us to fight, but why? We're not in the middle of a war or anything."

 _And once again, I'm reminded that there's a reason that Ravenclaw is the house of the intelligent_ , Jen thought with a hidden smile. That truly was an insightful question, and it was appropriate for the third in their year to realize that something was up, even if he didn't have access to the same information that the Blacks and the Order of the Phoenix did.  _Now, how is Potter going to answer it?_

James frowned a bit. "Not right now, at least." When the class began muttering, he elaborated, "You remember the attack on the World Cup summer before last, right? When the Dark Mark was seen again for the first time since all of you were babies?" Cornfoot, along with most others in the room, nodded. Even she, who was not a fan of Quidditch, had heard about that; it happened only a week before the start of the previous school year, and Sirius had been extremely antsy immediately afterwards. Perhaps that was the real reason why her entire family had insisted on escorting her to the Hogwarts Express. "That scared a lot of people, and it got some of us wondering if there's another war building on the horizon. I hope it was just a bunch of crazies reliving their glory days and not a prelude to something worse, but I'd rather be paranoid than be unprepared if an attack  _does_  come.

"Anything else?" No one spoke, apparently quailed by his blunt logic, and he nodded before waving his wand again. The sand shuddered and formed several buildings and a number of tiny golems in the same red and black color scheme he had used previously. "All right, then. The first scene we'll look at is from early on in the Grindelwald war, in May of 1939 to be exact. Here, the first company of the German  _Kampfmagier_  is about to begin their invasion of Poland's main magical town, located just outside Warsaw…"

* * *

"And that's all the time we have for today," James said as the bell rang. "We'll pick up with this discussion when we meet again on Friday."

He halted his little sand puppets as the Germans were just about to take possession of the Polish Ministry building; the fifth-years did not get quite as far along in the presentation as the sixth-years had the period before them, but they weren't too far behind, either, and it wasn't as if he had a strict schedule he had to adhere to. Several of the students from both houses had asked insightful questions, and that was better than them just staring at him blankly like he did with most of his own Defense professors when he had been a student.

The only bad thing about today? The one person he had wanted to speak up more than anyone else had remained stubbornly silent.

"Ms. Black?" Jenny went still at his call, and several of the blue-trimmed students glanced quickly between him and her. "Could you please stay behind for a moment?"

She resumed packing her bag, though at a slower pace than previously. Danny shot him a concerned look, and he motioned for his son to go ahead and leave. This was probably going to be difficult enough with just him and his daughter; no need to have Danny stay and see it even if he didn't accidentally make things worse.

 _Though it might not make much of a difference_ , a traitorous part of his mind whispered to him as it reminded him about what Lily had said just before he left the Longbottom's house.  _Maybe this is a bad idea, after all?_

Before he could risk talking himself out of this, the room emptied, soon leaving only him and his daughter. She drew her wand and aimed it at the closed door, probably casting some privacy spell or another. It was a good thing she hadn't taken the opportunity to curse him; at that moment, seeing her wand in her hand, it finally hit him how  _much_  of her life he had missed, opportunities he would never have again. Praising her for her bouts of accidental magic, teaching her how to ride a broom and play Quidditch, watching her face light up as a wand chose her…

Raising her to be a Potter.

"Was there something you wanted to speak to me about regarding today's class, Professor?" she asked in a cold voice, not at all what any father wanted to hear from his own child.

Shaking his head to get rid of his uncharacteristic distractedness, he said, "No, it wasn't anything to do with class—"

"Then I have no particular reason to stay here, do I?"

She turned to move towards the door. "Please, wait. Just  _talk_  to me, Jenny."

"You know, I seem to recall quite explicitly telling you  _never_  to call me that," the girl snarled, whipping around to send an icy glare at him from her disturbing purple eyes. For the first time, James was actually glad that her eyes were not still green; he would be hurting even more than he already was if he had to face Lily's emeralds glittering so hatefully at him. Not even when they were kids had his wife ever given him the look he was now receiving. "That is  _not_  my name anymore."

"Yes it is! I don't understand why you're so against even acknowledging who you are!"

"I know  _exactly_  who I am!" she screamed back at him. "I'm Jennifer Black, heir to the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black! If you wanted to raise  _'Jenny Potter'_ , you shouldn't have thrown her away like so much rubbish! That girl is  _dead_ , and she's  _never_  coming back!"

"You can call yourself whatever you want, but that doesn't change the fact that you're still my daughter! Still part of my House!" Didn't she understand? Even if she had somehow convinced the Ministry to forge the records to make her a Black – or paid the goblins to use dark magic on her, as Augusta was so sure they had done – she still had him listed as her father. She was still subconsciously reaching out. Why then did she refuse to understand that he was willing to give her place in the family back to her?

She sneered at him, an ugly expression that should never be on her face. "In that case, if your son kicks the bucket without issue, I'll make sure to transfer your gold to our vaults with all the solemnity it deserves. That's the full extent of the interactions I wish to have with  _your_  House."

"You don't mean that," he shot back. Even as angry as she was, she could never be that cruel. Not even Malfoy's poisoned words could distort her true nature that badly.

"I think between the two of us,  _I_  know better than you what I mean." She grabbed the doorknob and yanked the door open, showing him the girls waiting outside. "Let's avoid having these kinds of talks in the future,  _Professor Potter_."

* * *

Luna pursed her lips as she watched her two new yearmates press their ears against the classroom door. "I don't think that's going to work."

"Shh!" Padma chided, waving a hand to reinforce her demand. "I don't want to miss it."

The blonde sighed and tapped her foot for a few seconds, at which point Morag turned to the Indian girl and whispered, "I can't hear anything."

"Neither can I," Padma agreed.

"Maybe because she always uses silencing charms when she's discussing something personal?" The pair of girls looked at her and then each other before groaning in unison. "And should we really be  _trying_  to listen to what they're saying, anyway? I don't think she'd appreciate it."

Morag nodded. "Yeah, but how often does she tell us the  _really_  personal stuff about herself? And if nothing else, how are we supposed to know if we, being her friends, should run interference to keep them apart or press her to give him a chance if we don't know how they interact?"

"Other than what she said this morning about not being willing to forgive him for whatever it was he said?" she pressed.

"Oh, yeah. Forgot about that."

The door chose that moment to fling open, and the two eavesdroppers scurried back a few steps to look less like they were doing exactly what they had been doing. They need not have bothered, however; Jen was not even looking at them, her attention focused entirely on her father. "Let's avoid having these kinds of talks in the future,  _Professor Potter_." Spinning around, the black-haired girl stormed off, leaving the wizard to stare blankly at the now-empty doorway.

Luna looked to the Scottish girl, who needed no prompting. "Okay, so we  _shouldn't_  try pushing them together to get over their issues. Got it."

The fuming heiress seemed completely unaware of them as they followed her down a number of halls leading to a disused portion of the castle. She finally threw open a random door and stomped inside to glare angrily,  _hatefully_  at the blank wall in the back. Luna could not help but remember at that point something her father had once told her about her mother, how when her mum was in a snit she would conjure vases and then hex them until she felt better. Jen had made it clear over the past year that she had a bit of a violent streak, undoubtedly inherited from her own mother, so maybe she was the same way?

It certainly couldn't hurt to try; never had she ever seen her best friend be quite this enraged.

Whispering the incantation, Luna conjured a blue and white urn on top of the desk to Jen's left, the vase identical to one in her house. It only took a moment for Jen to realize it was there, and she immediate picked it up and hurled it at the far wall before starting to scream.

_"Sa fukin bata! Si touye l_ _'_ _pa ta mennen t_ _ou_ _dwat_ _tounen nan m_ _'_ _, mwen ta chire po li koupe ak moso lapò_ _s nan l_ _'_ _tounen lakay li nan li! Bouskile ralonj l_ _'_ _anndan k_ _è_ _l_ _'_ _, li mete dife ladan l_ _'_ _! Vire l_ _'_ _nan yon sourit ak manje l_ _'_ _nan yon koul_ _è_ _v! Jis ban m_ _'_ _yon rezon ki f_ _è_ _nou debarase m mond lan nan ou!_ _"_

_Well,_ _ **that**_ _was different_ , the blonde witch thought as she glanced at Morag and Padma, both of whom looked just as confused as she felt. Being amateur world-travelers, she and her father had gone to many lands and heard many tongues, but the one Jen was yelling in was not one she could place off the top of her head.  _Angry as it was, it was still quite pretty. I wonder what language that was. And perhaps a better question: where did she learn it?_

Jen slapped one hand on her face and sighed. " _Apre sa m_ _è_ _si Baron la yo pa konnen krey_ _ò_ _l._ " Turning to look at them, the girl muttered, "Okay, I'm better now."

"You sure? I'm sure we could give you a few more things to throw around if you need them," Padma replied with a weak grin.

"No, no, I'm fine. I just had to get that out of my system."

Morag nodded. "Okay, good. Now what the hell was  _that_  all about? None of us could understand a word of it."

"That's… probably a good thing," Jen admitted with a reluctant grimace. "It wasn't exactly something I would be comfortable repeating in English."

"Well, from the sound of it, I'm guessing that there's less of a chance of you two reconciling than there was this morning?"

Jen snorted at Padma's droll question. "Yeah, we've definitely crossed into negative probabilities at this point. Honestly, if the  _'Defense curse'_  you told me about is a real thing and wound up with him dead at the end of the year, I'd be hard-pressed to come up with any tears."

The other Ravens shared a disturbed look. What words could the father-daughter pair have  _possibly_ exchanged in that classroom?

* * *

Cedric sighed in bliss as the warm bath relaxed his muscles and washed all his tension away. This first week back had been just as stressful as he expected it to be, what with the teachers pushing the seventh-years even harder and faster than he remembered them doing for the OWL exams. Add onto that working with his fifth-year Quidditch co-captain, who the following year would be the sole Hufflepuff captain, on new plays and strategies for the upcoming season and organizing the Chaser try-outs, and he felt that he deserved an opportunity to decompress.

Nearby, Viola Pucey and Benjamin Adams sighed in response, as if expressing similar opinions.

The door banging open jolted them out of their half-asleep comfort, and three pairs of eyes watched an obviously furious Jen Black stalk into the prefects' bathroom. Without sparing them a single glance, she crossed the room to the lockers and changing rooms on the opposite side from the portrait and vanished behind the girls' curtain. After a moment, Viola wondered aloud, "She  _does_  know that we're here, doesn't she?"

Cedric could only shrug. While the bath was open to any of the prefects, the fifth-years rarely – in fact, almost never – took advantage of the enormous tub, and even then it was only at times when no one else would be present. He himself had been an 'early-bloomer' in that regard, as his desire for stress relief in the final weeks of fifth year immediately prior to and during the OWL exams had overridden his shyness about being seen in the buff by the older girls. Most other prefects waited until their sixth year to bathe with others around, and some individuals never shared the tub over their entire tenure.

A minute later, the subject of their curiosity exited the changing room, completely nude except for a white towel slung over one shoulder, and he was immensely thankful for the thick carpet of bubbles hiding everything below his chest from view. They were prohibited from having sex in the bath, but no rule ever conceived could stop a guy's natural reaction to watching a naked girl walk towards him. She gave the two Slytherins a quick nod and him a hint of a smile before dropping the towel onto the floor and slipping into the tub. Popping her head back out through the suds, she remarked idly, "It's deeper than I expected."

"Yes, it's more like a… What did Garraway call it?" Viola muttered to herself. "A  _'pool'_ , I think? Like a pond, but cleaner."

"Well, it certainly explains why you two implied that there was only one tub. I have to admit that I had wondered if this place was like a Roman bath or if all the prefects just got really  _friendly_ ," the other witch remarked with a snicker.

Looking at the younger girl laying back with her eyes closed, Cedric was almost reluctant to ask, "So what had you so up in arms when you came in?"

"My 'father' being an utter bastard to me. Nothing new."

The three older students shared a confused look. "You think you could explain that a little better?" Adams finally prompted.

She sighed. "After class on Monday, he had me stay behind, and we… had a bit of a shouting match. He refuses to understand that I have no desire to abandon my House and join his. I have no desire to have  _anything_  to do with him, in all honesty. By the Baron, if there were a way to disown one's parents, I'd gladly do it and save myself trouble in the future."

" _'By the Baron'_ ," Viola slowly repeated, a curious frown adorning her features. "That's an unusual phrase. Most people swear to Merlin."

"It's just something my nurse said all the time when I was growing up," Jen dismissed with a negligent wave of her foam-covered hand. "The way she used it most often was probably  _'By the Baron, Jen, if you were any more hard-headed, I'd rent you out as a hammer'_." Once their chuckles died down, she continued, "Anyway, I want nothing to do with him or his House, and he just refuses to leave me alone."

The Snakes nodded at that, leaving Cedric puzzled at their casual acceptance of her statement. He offered, "Maybe I'm missing something, but is it possible that he just wants to get to know his daughter? You know, the one he didn't even know  _existed_  before this summer?"

"I'd consider that a possibility if the first thing he said to my Head of House after finding out wasn't that he should erase my memory and dump me back into the Muggle world," she replied in a dead tone, causing him to blanch. "After that particular rejection, you can perhaps understand why I'm not feeling inordinately fond of him at the moment, especially as his current attitude is that I need someone to come and 'fix' me."

 _That's… wow_. As a just Badger through and through, he generally tried to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and listen to both sides of the story, but there were few things he could think of that would excuse a father saying something like  _that_.  _If that's how he treats her, I can't exactly blame her for wanting to keep her distance from him. Does he blame her for being proof of his dalliance with Lestrange, which I'm sure most people would want to keep secret, or is his problem with her solely that she's illegitimate? He wouldn't be the first lord who tried to bury the issue of his bastard child even after she was already known to the world at large._

Adams nodded slowly. "Okay, I doubt anyone would blame you for wanting away from him if that's the way he's treating you, but it still doesn't explain why you were in a huff when you got here."

"Thank you, I completely lost my train of thought. Since Monday went  _so_  well, I expected him to pull something again today, and he delivered  _spectacularly_. He's now spending the entire year's worth of class periods with that little sandbox of his, so if we want to learn the spells we need to know for the OWL – you know, the actual  _point_  of the class? – we have to come to a 'tutoring session' every Tuesday evening. Five sickles says he's going to use it as an excuse to confront me over and over again."

"I hate to tell you this, but not everything's about you." Jen finally opened her eyes at that and gave the Head Girl a flat stare, to which the elder witch smirked. "He's doing that same thing for our year on Wednesdays."

"Sixth-years have him on Thursdays."

"Yes, thank you for that  _fascinating_  detail, Adams." Both Cedric and Jen smiled a bit at Viola's dry retort. "Sure, he may do exactly what you think he's going to do while he has the opportunity, but I doubt you're his  _entire_  reason for arranging his after-hours instruction. It was probably Dumbledore or McGonagall jumping onto him for not planning to teach us anything important and instead spending the whole year on his  _'here's how you properly take down a dark wizard'_  kick. If  _I_  ever found myself around an angry dark wizard, the first thing I'd do is Apparate the hell out of there and Floo-call the Aurors, just like anyone who  _isn't_  a foolhardy Gryffindor would do."

"…That  _does_  make me feel a little bit better about it, strangely enough," the younger girl finally replied.

Cedric nodded. "Besides, if you're that adamant that you don't want to go, you could always have your friends show you what they covered that night. It gives them extra practice,  _and_  you don't have to deal with your father. Win-win."

They were quiet after that, at least until Adams commented, "So, Black, you a Tornadoes fan by any chance?"

"Oh, Merlin, not this again," he laughed, the girls choosing to grumble instead. With the ice broken, they continued discussing much lighter topics until it was time to get out and dress for dinner.

* * *

With a sharp lurch, Rita felt herself be pulled from a sound sleep to sudden wakefulness. Had someone cast an  _Ennervate_  on her? She tried to rise from her bed, but her eyes widened in panic as she failed to move her arms or legs from their outstretched positions. A glance at her wrists confirmed her fears: someone had broken into her house and tied her to her bed frame. She screamed, "Help! Someone! Help!"

"Ah-ah-ah," a soft voice chided. "Don't bother calling for anyone to come and save you. I already laid silencing charms over all the doors and windows." The speaker stepped closer to the foot of her bed, and though the darkness and lack of glasses made her vision quite blurry, she could just make out someone in a hooded black cloak. Her rhinestone-rimmed spectacles floated over to perch upon her nose, but the improved view did little to raise her spirits.

"Do you have any idea who I am?!" she barked, hoping that a little bravado would scare the burglar away, even though she knew her being tied up and in her nightgown likely kept her from being an imposing sight. The ropes would not be an issue once she could safely change into her beetle form, but she would rather not do that where anyone could see. Being an Animagus was one of the keys to her success, and it would be much less useful if word got out about it. "I am—"

"Rita Skeeter, journalist for the  _Daily Prophet_ , muck-raker, and an overall pain in the arse. Yes, I'm quite aware of who you are." The intruder pulled down the hood of the cloak, revealing dark curls and cruel purple eyes. "Since I'm here for you, it would be a major disappointment for me to have broken into the wrong flat."

Looking at the other witch's face, it did not take long for her to place it. "Black, what an unpleasant surprise," she crowed. She knew revealing the truth about Bellatrix Lestrange's daughter would set the cat amongst the pixies, but for it to cause the girl herself to try intimidating her? That was beyond her wildest imaginings. "This was a huge mistake, girlie. I wonder how the public will react to hearing that the child of a Death Eater sneaks about at night breaking into people's houses? They'll be calling for your head before noon!"

"Oh, silly Rita. What makes you think you're going to tell anyone anything about this?" the brat giggled, pulling a pair of steel shears from inside her cloak and giving them a few experimental snips.

She scoffed. "Look, you might be able to intimidate schoolchildren with your mother's name, but I've dealt with more powerful and much scarier people than you. Untie me right now, and  _maybe_  I won't press charges."

"More powerful? Perhaps, depending on your definition of  _'power'_. Scarier?" Black smiled. "I doubt it." Rita felt something cold press against the smallest toe of her left foot. "Now, I have some questions, and if you're smart, you'll answer them quickly and honestly."

"And if I don't?" she taunted.

 _Snikt_. The cold against her skin vanished, and she opened her mouth to jeer when the pain hit. She shrieked and tried to jerk her injured foot towards her, the rope holding her limb fast. Black snickered and tossed something small and pink onto her chest, and Rita screamed even louder as she stared at the  _tip of her own toe_.

"Oh, do shut up. There are 218 bones in the human body; you've only lost  _one_ , and arguably the least useful one, at that." Rita's breath caught when she felt the cold touch of the girl's scissors return, this time on the second toe of her other foot, and Black continued, "So, are you willing to talk?"

"Please, I'll do what you want," the reporter gasped, futilely pulling against the ropes binding her to the bed. "Just please don't hurt me."

She had faced off against Ministry department heads, Dumbledore, and most perilous of all, members of the Wizengamot. She had withstood lawsuits, blackmail attempts, and character assassination. But no one had ever gone so far as to  _torture_  her before.

"Excellent. First question: who told you about my heritage?"

"Lord Parkinson. I don't know how he got the information," she lied. If she sent the girl at another lord, maybe he'd kill her, or at least send the DMLE after her. If nothing else, it'd get the bitch away from  _her_.

 _Snikt_.

Crying and wailing, she could only watch in horror as a  _second_  toe landed close to the first. "Don't lie to me, Rita dear. I'll know, and each time you do…" The metal shears ghosted up and down the sole of her foot until Black stabbed her with them, giving them a sharp twist to increase the agony even  _more_  before pulling the blades back out. "Your punishment will get worse. Now,  _who told you about my heritage_?"

"It was in your file in the Hall of Records! I was looking for what you did to the old farts in the Wizengamot that stirred them up when I saw it!"

"I see." Black tapped her lips with the bloodied scissors for a moment. "So it was just your curiosity, and then your lack of self-preservation instincts. I was honestly expecting you to just be one little cog in a much larger machine."

 _What is she talking about?_ , Rita wondered fearfully at the strange words before she realized the truth.  _Dear Merlin, she's insane!_

"I'm actually rather disappointed, though I suppose it's a good thing. The fewer bodies I leave in my wake, the less chance anyone will trace it back to me."

 _Bodies?!_  Her safety was far more important than her secrets; Rita forced herself to relax the tiniest bit and let her body crumple into a small blue beetle. She then shrieked shrilly as what felt like a lightning bolt smashed into her and stretched her back out to human form.

"And you're an Animagus, too?" Black's grin could have caused even a Death Eater to wet himself in terror. "Well, now, I suppose this means I definitely need to take care of you sooner rather than later.

"I told you what you wanted to know! Please don't kill me! I'll do anything!" she begged.

" _Kill you_? Not at all. You, sweetie, are going to help me out. You'll search for information on whomever I want, whenever I want it, and without complaining or revealing your allegiance."

"I promise. I won't let you down," she said. Anything that would get this monster in human skin to leave her alone.  _Then_  she would call the DMLE and seek their protection.

"Hm? Oh, I wasn't offering you a bargain." Black twitched her already outstretched hand, and despite the lack of wand, Rita's limbs pulled themselves back towards the bedposts. "Did you know that there are a number of books in my family's library concerning the Dark Arts? We have the classic volumes on curses and poisons, of course, but over the centuries, we've also collected more…  _esoteric_  texts." The girl smirked, and Rita grew even paler at the evil expression. "One of those was on something called  _'enslavement magic'_. Have you ever heard of it, by chance?"

She fearfully shook her head.

"Well, there were a number of different spells in the book, each meant to do different things to different species. There's one, though, that really caught my eye: a spell that causes the subject to shift their devotion entirely to the caster. It's not particularly subtle, unfortunately, but I suppose I'll just have to make due." Black pointed an imperious finger at her nose, and Rita's tears just fell faster.

She couldn't escape in her Animagus form, she couldn't fight, she couldn't—

Rita blinked.  _What was I just thinking?_  Shaking off the feeling – it could not have been that important if she could not remember it after only a few seconds – she turned to the young woman standing at the foot of her bed. "Yes, Mistress Jen? Was there something you wanted?"

"How are you feeling?" the girl asked, propping her hip against the footboard. "After you wrote that  _horrible_ article revealing my secrets, I was worried you had decided to turn against me."

"No, not at all!" She wracked her brain.  _I remember writing the article, the one telling everyone who her parents were, but_ _ **why**_ _would I write such a thing? It doesn't make any sense!_  "M-Mistress? I don't remember why I wrote it. I know I did, but I don't remember why!"

Mistress Jen sighed and sat on the bed next to her to pat her hand gently. "There, there, Rita. The only thing I can think of is that someone got to you and put you under a compulsion charm. It would explain why your memory is a little fuzzy on your motives."

"I'm so sorry, Mistress Jen. If I had just paid more attention, this never would have happened."

"That's true, but what's done is done. No point worrying about it now." The younger witch tilted her head and looked askance at her. "How have you been referring to me in public? If you've called me  _'Mistress Jen'_  where your colleagues could hear you and realize how close you are to me, it would explain why someone would seek to use you against me."

"No!" she immediately denied. "In the office, I never talk about you, and the few times I did after the article came out, I called you  _'that Black girl'_."

"Then this is still a mystery. Oh well, I'll look into this as soon as I can; you just worry about maintaining your cover." An ever-inked quill and a small roll of parchment flew into Mistress Jen's hands, and the young woman slowly wrote a short letter. "In the morning, send an owl to my aunt, Narcissa Black, asking if there's anything she wants you to look into. Include  _this_  message; it will explain to her the situation and make sure she doesn't think it's a trick.

"I also have another job for you: keep an eye and an ear on your coworkers for anything you think will be beneficial to us. Again, send it all to my aunt, as she will be your primary contact from here on out,  _unless_  it concerns my immediate safety. If that's the case, send it to me directly, and  _then_  send a copy to Auntie. Can you remember all that?"

"Of course I can!" she answered in an almost affronted tone. Did her Mistress really think she was that simple-minded? Then again, she  _had_  just been under a compulsion charm, so it made sense that Mistress Jen would be concerned for any long-term effects it could have on her. "Send that note to your aunt, along with my own letter of introduction; keep my eyes and ears open; and report anything interesting to your aunt unless it sounds like you're in danger, in which case I send the information to both you and your aunt."

"And don't let on that you're in our service," Mistress Jen reminded her sternly. "If you have to choose between eavesdropping or keeping  _that_  a secret, make sure you keep yourself and us safe. You can always look for the info later, when it's safe to do so."

She ducked her head in embarrassment. "Yes, Mistress."

The witch to whom she owed her complete allegiance stood and pulled her hood back over her head. "Oh, and make sure you have someone check your wards. You forgot to key me in when you set them up, so I'm afraid I might have ripped them apart in my haste to get here and check on you." Rita blushed at that admonishment. She had to be sure not to make a foolish mistake like  _that_  again. "Farewell for now, Rita. I'll be in touch." With a spin and a crack, the girl Disapparated away.

* * *

**James has an enchanted sandbox for the sole reason that I couldn't figure out how to rationalize a holodeck in the HP world outside of using the Room of Requirement, no matter how cool it would be.**

**Since so many people asked me why no one ever called out Jen on swearing to Baron Samedi, here you go. All she has to do is say it's something she picked up from "Elizabeth", and no one gives it a second thought.**

**It's funny; I've been planning for the last scene since chapter 4 of** _**Princess of the Blacks** _ **, but it wasn't until I was proofreading it that I realized the** _**horrifying** _ **implications it has. Suffice it to say that Jen won't be using enslavement magics much, or possibly ever, from here on out.**

**Jen's diatribe (at least what I put into Google Translate):**  That bloody bastard! If killing him wouldn't lead straight back to me, I would tear his skin off and mail pieces of him back home in it! Shove his wand inside his heart and set it on fire! Turn him into a mouse and feed him to a snake! Just give me a reason to rid the world of you!

And thank the Baron they don't know Creole.

**And a recommendation for you: stick the above in Google and listen to it. It really does have a beautiful cadence to it, despite how nasty the actual meaning is.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	16. Alternative Instruction

**bissek:**  Once again, I have a plan for the Chalice; just  _be patient_ , and I'm sure you'll enjoy it. I couldn't show it in-chapter, but James's tactics class is only for fifth through seventh years. And no, he doesn't recall what he said on the platform.

**Hey, we're picking up the pace! I managed to fit a week in less than three chapters this time. Also, for anyone who doesn't have my profile page favorited, the first chapter of** _**What Happens in Vegas** _ **is up.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did Hogwarts's heads of house, or at least McGonagall, seem to view their role as a mere formality and rarely have any  _real_  interaction with the students under their guidance? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 16  
** **Alternative Instruction**

_Jen,_

_Return to London next weekend. We need to have a talk about your latest stunt. I'd rather not bring it to our Head of House's attention if I don't have to._

_Aunt Narcissa_

Jen refolded the short, terse letter that had arrived that morning and pursed her lips. "Well, that's probably not a good sign," she finally muttered before waving her hand vaguely over the parchment and setting it ablaze. Perhaps immediately sending her new 'follower' to her aunt had been a bad decision in hindsight, but in her defense, what else was she to do with Skeeter after performing the actual enslavement? Cissy would have a much better idea of how to use an utterly loyal servant for their House's benefit than she did.

A shrill ringing came from a nearby desk, and she dispelled the alarm charm on her pocket watch and summoned it to her hand. In addition to dealing with her aunt's obvious displeasure, she also had a meeting to attend with the head of Ravenclaw, and considering how disgruntled he had been over the weekend, she doubted  _this_  was good news, either.

Could she not just get a break for a week?

 _At least the room_ _'_ _s cleaned out and ready for my experiment_ , she reminded herself as she pulled the door of the abandoned classroom she had commandeered closed behind her, her finger then running along the line of nauthiz runes she had carved into the wood above the knob. Each symbol glowed faintly as her magic touched it, increasing the friction between the door and frame until no force would be able to move the wooden panel.  _Add a little illusion to the mix_ , she thought as she wove the glamour and bound it to the inverted raidho at the end,  _and no one will even think to check for hidden runes. They_ _'_ _ll assume I_ _'_ _m using a locking charm, which means they_ _'_ _ll waste their time trying to magically pick an unlocked door._

Making her way up to the fifth floor, she passed the entrance to the common room and stopped in front of a portrait depicting four witches playing a card game. "I have an appointment with Professor Flitwick."

The painting swung outwards at her announcement, and she stepped into the room beyond. It was quite clear that this was the domain of a quarter-goblin; not only was everything but two chairs on the near side of the desk much smaller than would be useful for a full-sized human, numerous swords and hammers lined the walls above a collection of low bookcases. At the back of the room hung a large tapestry, which depicted a grand battle between wizards and goblins in a gilded cavern.

"The final battle of the goblin rebellion of 1756?" she asked, running her eyes over the scene. As far as she could remember, that was the first and only time humans had been able to take the fight to the goblin's home turf. Of course, considering the outcome, once was all that had been necessary.

"That it is," Flitwick replied absently, all his focus on the cups of tea he was preparing. "The goblin nation still hasn't forgiven humans for that little trick, intentionally ignoring that it was no less dishonorable than many actions they themselves took in the war. In fact, the goblin name for Gringotts' main lobby translates to  _'_ _the Hall of Treachery_ _'_."

She cocked her head in bemusement. "Interesting choice for a centerpiece."

"It was a 'gift' I received upon completing my Charms apprenticeship, given to me by one man whom our master had expelled from the program." The tiny wizard glanced up at her with a sly smile on his face. "I think it was meant to be an insult, but instead I chose to treat it as a reminder that one must always persevere, no matter what adversities one might face."

He passed her one of the teacups and added, "Well, that and because I'm not all that fond of my grandfather's people, nor they me."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Professor," she murmured politely.

"Why? I'm not. I think we're both well aware that sometimes  _'_ _family_ _'_  isn't all it's cracked up to be," he said in a knowing tone.

She grimaced at that reminder. "You can say that again. I'm… not exactly enthusiastic about how Professor Potter has chosen to organize his class."

His eyebrows twitched at that comment, possibly due to how she had chosen to address the wizard she was quite unfortunately still related to, but he said nothing about it. Instead, he agreed, "Nor are you the only one. I can't speak for  _all_  of the staff, but I know that none of the heads of house are amused with what he's doing, either. Defense Against the Dark Arts is a mandatory course, and for good reason, but the impact of that is lost when the year's teacher is more interested in doing what he wants rather than imparting the knowledge you need. Sadly, your father is far from the worst one we've had in that regards; ask your friends about Lockhart some time. Now  _he_  was an unmitigated  _disaster_."

"Perhaps I will have to check with them about him if he was as awful as you say," she replied with a slight grin. "Should be a fun way to pass an evening if nothing else. Unfortunately, it doesn't solve my immediate problem."

"The after-class sessions, I presume? I knew those were going to be an issue as soon as I heard about them."

She nodded. "I can already tell you that I'm not going to attend. Cedric Diggory suggested that I ask someone to teach me the spells afterwards and learn them that way, so I'll either do that or make a list of all the spells I'm supposed to know and have my cousin show them to me. Having an Auror in the family has to come with  _some_  benefits."

"You  _could_  do either one of those, but there's a third course of action that you're missing," Flitwick said with a wicked smirk.

"Really?" she asked suspiciously. She knew that the head of Ravenclaw was a wily wizard – his recommendation about how to hide her wandless casting and his obstacle in the Staff Task of the Triwizard Tournament were proof enough of that – and right now he practically radiated smug amusement. Her curiosity was piqued. "Do tell."

"Well, as you demonstrated last year, you have a natural talent for dueling – not surprising, really, considering your past and present parentage – but little experience and absolutely no formal training. That much was obvious in both of your matches with Krum." He leaned over the desk, and his smile turned positively shark-like. "I'm willing to help you rectify that."

* * *

The next day, she started regretting taking Flitwick up on his offer.

"There are three formats of dueling, if we wish to speak generally," the tiny teacher stated as he paced in front of her. "First and foremost in this day and age, we have competitive duels. These are highly organized and have stringent rules, primarily to ensure the safety of the competitors and spectators. It is a sport; a brutal, bloody sport, but a sport nonetheless, and much like in the Coliseum of old, the point is not only to demonstrate your skill, but also to entertain those watching." He chuckled. "Thankfully, the losers are not gladiators, killed upon their failure in order to appease the public's thirst for violence and depravity.

"Second, there are honor duels. Though illegal, there are always some idiots who'd rather settle disagreements with force rather than with words. Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Potter nearly got into an honor duel during their first week here, and let me tell you, they most  _definitely_  regretted that decision when we found out. While I'd  _like_  to say that they were banned purely because we progressed as a society and realized murder should never be condoned,  _especially_  not to soothe one's ego, the truth is that some Houses didn't— Well, let's just say that there was confusion over the exact terms of engagement."

Jen snickered at the man's quick change of words. "You can go ahead and say it, Professor. Several Houses, including my own, realized that manipulating, sabotaging, or even outright assassinating their opponent and his second was safer and more effective than actually participating in the duel."

"Er… Well, yes, not to put too fine a point on it," he finally agreed. "Those Houses had a tendency to  _confuse_  honor duels with the third type of magical combat, street dueling."

"Which is…?" she prompted.

"Exactly what it sounds like. No rules, no referees, just a fancy name for wizards and witches fighting each other until one side either runs away or can't fight anymore, generally due to severe injury or death. Ironically, there are some legitimate dueling leagues that allow a modified form of street dueling, and I've heard that Knockturn Alley has at least two underground fight clubs, but it is rarely so organized."

"Three types of duels, got it." She cocked her head. "Which are you planning to teach me, out of curiosity?"

"Technically, I'll be teaching you all three since they rely on the same general strategy, but as for which one we'll be focusing on… Remind me again how you fought Mr. Potter and Mr. Longbottom in the Hufflepuff Task, or Krum in the Slytherin Task?" She could not help but grin at the wizard's droll tone. "Your preferred tactics are stealth and subterfuge, and as you admitted, your family is not known for fighting fair."

"Street dueling, then."

" _Clearly_."

"Excellent. Professor?" Flitwick nodded, so she continued, "How did you first get involved in dueling? I remember you said last year that the Auror's Combat Instructor taught you some, but what made you decide to ask in the first place?"

The teacher grimaced at that. "I… I suppose you could say I got into a lot of fights when I was a student here. As you can probably guess, there were quite a few people who saw a part-goblin attending Britain's most prestigious school as something that should be immediately  _corrected_ , and due in large measure to my own foolish pride, I rarely let such insults go unanswered, even if I usually wound up getting the worse end of the exchange. When I first went to Townsend for help, I must admit that I had dreams of using the skills I would learn to get revenge for all the abuse they had heaped on me, but thankfully he taught me not just  _how_  to fight, but also what degree of retaliation was appropriate and legal, for which I was later quite thankful," he added with a wry smile. "I had completely overlooked the possibility that the parents of blood purists would have a problem with a half-breed injuring their precious heirs. Being able to prove that I had responded with no more than proper force probably kept me out of Azkaban or worse.

"But enough ancient history for now," Flitwick said, bouncing lightly on his feet and shaking out his hands. "We  _will_  return to the subject of appropriate force later, I promise you that, but for now, I'd like a better picture of just what you can do. When I say  _'_ _go_ _'_ , come at me with everything you have."

"That simple?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Sometimes simpler is better," was his nonchalant reply, his wand slipping out of his sleeve into his hand. "Go!"

Any doubts she had about her professor's intent quickly vanished as she conjured a stone in midair to block a red, sharp-edged spell. He clearly was not playing around. A bolt of lightning crackled as it leapt from her right hand, and she immediately followed it up with a fireball from her left.

She then had to duck under a second curse that came from the side.

Flitwick had been correct about one thing: she did not have much experience with dueling. Elsie had tried to teach her some, but fighting a magically weak, arthritic 170-year-old was not the best preparation for protecting herself in the real world. Her matches during the Slytherin Task had not been even fights, either, as she possessed the unique advantage of being able to rely on her normal method of spell-casting. In the Hufflepuff Task, she had taken Longbottom and Potter by complete surprise, and while Viktor certainly had held the upper hand, he squandered it by being far too chivalrous. Perhaps, she privately admitted, she had gotten a bit of a big head.

The short wizard fought like none of them. Bouncing around the room like a demented squirrel on a sugar-rush, she could barely get off a lightning bolt before he was somewhere else and flinging some new bit of magic at her that she had to either dodge or, more and more, block with some conjured detritus. To make things even worse, she could swear that his casting was getting  _faster_  as their match went on, and after what felt like long minutes, she had to give up any chance of offense and start throwing up wall after wall, each of which rapidly crumbled under the onslaught.

 _This is getting ridiculous_ , she mentally snarled as yet another barrier collapsed. Changing tack, she directed her magic to create a circular wall around Flitwick rather than herself. If she could contain him for just a couple of—

That was when the wall exploded, and a chunk of flying debris the size of her two fists smashed into her head.

"—ack.  _Ms. Black_. Nap-time's over."

"Ugh," she groaned as her eyes fluttered open. The ceiling of the dueling room swam for a few moments before growing still. "How long…?"

"You were out for not quite three minutes," Flitwick answered in an irritatingly jovial voice. "Unless you meant how long did the fight go on, in which case, fifteen seconds."

" _Fifteen_?"

"Seconds, yes, I did just say that. Perhaps you need to see the nurse?"

She tried to roll her eyes and winced when that caused yet another stab of pain. "You are entirely too chipper about this."

"I think I'm allowed to be." Waving his wand over her, she felt  _something_  in her head shift back into proper position, and the pain went down a notch. "You did rather better than I expected. That last move in particular was quite clever; a pity it didn't work."

Irritated at both the still-present ache and her teacher's newfound sadistic side, Jen placed her hand over her face and increased the magic rushing through her damaged tissues. Now being consciously guided, her concussion faded away to leave only a few lingering scraps of pain, and she pushed herself up to a sitting position. Looking over at the small man, whom she was now at eye-level with, she retorted, "I hope you don't mind if I assume you were being sarcastic."

"Oh no, I was completely serious. I would expect few students to last that long."

"Your casting was getting faster the longer the match went on," she pointed out. "How can I be happy with fifteen seconds if you were holding back so much?"

Rather than deny her accusation as she half-expected, Flitwick snorted. "Of  _course_  I was holding back. Not only am I trained where you are not, I have half a  _century_  on you in terms of experience. If I hadn't held back, you wouldn't have been able to get a single spell off, and then what would the point of our match have been?"

 _When he puts it like that, he has a good point_ , she admitted reluctantly. _He could have crushed me easily if he wanted to._

"Now, let me hear your analysis of the fight," he commanded. "What you did right, what you did wrong, and what I did that you noticed."

"Isn't it  _your_  job to tell  _me_  that?" she muttered under her breath.

"Don't get snide. The lessons you figure out for yourself stick with you longer than the lessons other people give you. If you can't think of anything about your actions at the moment, start with mine."

"Well, one thing I realized is there's something to be said for cursing the other guy when he's not expecting it." At his impatient sigh, she continued more seriously, "You never stood still; whenever I tried to hit you with a spell, you just weren't  _there_  anymore. It's actually quite irritating."

He chucked. "You aren't the first person to say that. Most European duelists are stationary, relying on their shields to block their opponent's attacks. You do the same, though I was happy to see that you did move some. Challenge Ms. Tonks to a duel, however, and I expect you'll notice she does the same thing I do. Aurors and Hit Wizards are taught to be constantly on the move, Apparating around the battlefield if they can and running on their feet when they can't."

"Also, you were doing something with your spells. Your wand wasn't moving, just spitting hex after hex at me. And they were all extremely similar shades of red, though they felt different."

" _Very_  good. I had hoped your magical sensitivity would let you pick up on that," he praised. "Using different spells that look similar is considered a bit of a cheap trick, but it is an effective one nonetheless. Without an auxiliary sense like yours, even experienced wizards won't be able to tell just what you're casting without an incantation or motion to go on, which keeps them guessing about the most efficient way to block them. As for how I was able to cast so many so quickly, it's called point-casting. You'll learn it in your seventh-year Charms, Transfiguration, or Defense class, just as you will be expected to master nonverbal casting in sixth-year." He gave her a faux-stern look. "You, however, already seem to have mastered that."

"I aim to impress," she replied with a shrug. "Er, you immediately got out of the wall I put around you. I wanted to slow you down so I could afford a moment to plan, but then you  _blew it up_ , with me acting as collateral damage."

The quarter-goblin offered her a smile. "Well, you'll have to forgive me for that. When you caught me in it, I have to admit that my first thought was that you were going to fill it with water to drown me, or should that fail, follow it up with more lightning. I trust you can understand why I wasn't enthusiastic about experiencing that.

"Anything else?" After another few moments, she shook her head, and he nodded with a sigh. "I suppose that's detailed enough for your first attempt at a technical self-analysis. Would you like to hear what I noticed about your performance?"

"That would help," she answered. She had no clue just what he wanted to hear, and perhaps it was due to her ignorance about dueling, but she could not think of anything to say about her own side of the battle. She fought the best she could, she lost, and that was pretty much it.

"As I mentioned before, you mostly stand still, preferring to block rather than evade, even after you knew I was on the move. Normally I'd attribute it to a beginner's mistake, but with you it's something else. You have a marked tendency towards using elemental spells; lightning, fire, wind, as well as those stone walls. Expensive magically, but not something someone can deflect with a basic  _Protego_. While you didn't do it in this match, the second time you faced off with Krum, you relied primarily on conjured creatures, which isn't easy, either, even if it is far more convenient than transfiguration."

He stepped closer and jabbed a finger at her. "Add to that that you switched to defense quite quickly, and your strategy becomes obvious. You're magical powerful, you know it, and so you try to keep the fight going, turning it into a battle of attrition. You can outlast the vast majority of other wizards, so all you need to do to win is make sure you weather their attacks with minimum effort, even if it still costs you more power than it does them."

She nodded in agreement. With her direct connection to the planet's reserves, she did not need to conserve energy, so of course she would wait until her opponent was out of juice. That was something she had figured out early on.

"Unfortunately, your inexperience limits your ability to properly use your natural advantages," he continued, which surprised her. She  _did_  use her power effectively. Didn't she? "It was obvious in the way that you stuck to the same strategy, even after you knew it would ultimately cause you to fail. I kept dodging your attacks, so why didn't you try a wide-area spell that would hit me no matter where I went? It isn't like I could outrun it with these short legs of mine." That… was a good question. "Before we began, I reminded you that you like to use trickery when you have time to plan for it, and you showed in the Hufflepuff Task that you know a spell that makes you invisible. Why didn't you hide and try to curse me in the back?"

"I… I didn't think about it," she finally admitted.

"And  _that_  is why I say that you don't use your skills effectively. Something to keep in mind is that you don't have the temperament of a head-to-head fighter, so don't act like one. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that you don't enjoy direct confrontation,  _especially_  against someone with whom you're equally matched. You always want some trump card or contingency plan, and until you have that, you do everything you can think of to postpone the battle."

She bit her lower lip and looked away. Everything he had said was right on the mark, and far closer to the truth than she was really comfortable hearing. Especially when the way he phrased it made her sound like a coward. Being a coward implied being fearful of those she moved against. She was cautious, yes; pragmatic, most certainly; but not afraid.

"Come now, Ms. Black, don't think I'm insulting you," he chided gently. "The first step in being good at dueling, or politics, or research, or  _anything_  really, is to play to your strengths, and how can you do that unless you know what those strengths  _are_? Besides, not only are you a Raven, you also have more than a few Slytherin traits; I would have been extremely surprised if you were geared for direct combat." Changing the subject, he asked, "Do you think you can stand up now?"

 _That is a very good question_. Jen shifted a bit to try and dropped back to the floor when the room resumed its rotations. "No, I'm still a little too dizzy. Give me another few minutes."

"That's fine. Since you're already sitting down, let's discuss some of the spells you'll likely be required to know for the Defense Against the Dark Arts OWL. We'll do a few of them between each bout while you recover. When you're ready, we'll have a second match, and then call it quits for this week. Does that sound good to you?"

She nodded and watched as Flitwick demonstrated and started explaining the pertinent facts of the Impediment Jinx.  _This is what you signed up for_ , she reminded herself.  _You wanted to avoid James, and Flitwick offering to teach you to duel was the best alternative. You positively leapt at the opportunity_. She had immediately accepted his offer, and he was the recognized expert of the subject. If he thought beating her into the ground was the best way to teach her, then despite her loathing of not being in control, she had to trust that he was being honest with her.

An hour later, when she was seated in the fluffiest of the armchairs in front of the Ravenclaw common room's fireplace doing her best not to disturb her numbing charm and the rest of her year tromped in laughing about how much fun her father's tutoring session had been, she had to remind herself several more times.

* * *

Jen's lips pursed in displeasure the moment she stepped over the wardline for Grimmauld Place. "This isn't going to be pretty," she muttered as she felt the two cores waiting for her. Walking through the door, she called, "I'm home!"

"In the sitting room!"

 _Yes, I'm already aware of that. Don't they know that I can feel everything on our property?_  She stopped and thought about that for a moment, but try as she might, she could not recall ever mentioning that to her family. It just had never come up.  _Oh well_.

The door to the sitting room was standing open, and she squared her shoulders as she entered. "Good morning, Aunt Cissy, Rita."

"Hi, Mistress!" Skeeter replied with a cheery wave.

"Jen." She grimaced at her aunt's cold tone. The likelihood of this being an enjoyable discussion just kept getting smaller. Cissy pointed to an armchair. "Sit. Explain. Now."

"I'm not sure there's all that much to say," she replied, eschewing the indicated seat and instead plopping onto the sofa. It was just a tiny bit of rebellion, but from the narrowing of Cissy's eyes, she knew she had gotten her message across. What she had done to Skeeter was neither moral nor legal, but it was far more effective than what the adults of the family had done, namely nothing. As if summoned by her thoughts, the reporter scooted closer until they were nearly touching. "You four were focusing on the  _Daily Prophet_ , so I took care of the other side of the issue."

"And like a hydra, two more sprang up." Cissy huffed and leaned back into her own chair. "I know you used enslavement magic of some kind; it's the only thing that makes sense, and there was a book missing from that section of the library. I think I know what spell you used, too.  _Katokidio metatropi?"_

She nodded. The aptly named Subservience Curse sounded at first like something out of a paperback bondage romance novel, but it was, in fact, a spell to create in the victim a total, unbreakable devotion to the caster, hence the instant taming of the squirrel when Luna walked up on her practicing and Skeeter's change in emotion from terrified hatred to adoration. "She can't spill our secrets if she's our willing servant, and we get a spy in the  _Prophet_  office as well. It was worth it."

"Worth what, breaking into her house and using magic so dark it's considered  _borderline black_?" her aunt shot back. "You realize that if anyone catches wind of this, you'll be staying in Azkaban for a very,  _very_  long time, right?"

"Please, who's going to tell anyone? The only people who know about it are the three of us in this room. I'm unaffected by ingested potions, including Veritaserum, you I'm sure have some method of getting around it, and Rita doesn't remember me casting the spell and won't remember the details of this conversation when I leave."

"You're going to memory charm me, Mistress?" the reporter whimpered.

Jen frowned. "Didn't I tell you not to call me  _'Mistress'_ in public?"

"Yes, you did, but this isn't out in public, is it?" asked Rita with a sly smile. "This is private, so it's fine."

Ignoring the look Cissy shot her that practically screamed  _'What did I say?'_ , she clarified, "You can call me that when it's just the two of us. Let's spare Auntie a heart attack for now, all right? And I'm going to alter your memory for your and my protection."

"Oh. I guess that's okay, then."

"There, see?" she asked the piebald witch. "Problem solved."

"And did you figure out that she wrote the article on her own initiative before or after turning her into your little pet? She was less than entirely clear on that point," Cissy continued in a stern voice.

 _Oh, great. As if she weren_ _'_ _t mad enough before_. "Rita, why don't you go downstairs and see what Kreacher's planning for dinner? I think my aunt and I need some privacy for the rest of this conversation."

Skeeter quickly and amiably agreed and left the room, and Jen quickly laid a suite of privacy charms over the door. "I found that out before I improved her. All it took was some…  _encouragement_."

"Why does that not fill me with confidence?" her aunt asked rhetorically.

"I had to get the information  _somehow_ ," she defended, crossing her arms over her chest with a huff. She added in a mutter, "She should just be glad I reattached her toes."

"She should be glad  _what_?!"

Her voice was dry as the desert as she replied, "Nothing."

"Dear Merlin, Jen," Cissy groaned, dropping her head into her hands. "You  _are_  your mother's daughter, ironically enough. I'm starting to wonder if having Sirius blood adopt you wouldn't have been worth the trouble of explaining away Lily simultaneously bearing two men's children."

"And just what is that supposed to mean?"

"It  _means_  that I'm worried you've inherited more than just Bellatrix's eyes," her aunt snapped. "Either that or you weren't thinking about the consequences of your actions, and I  _know_  you're smarter than that. Enslaving a well-known public figure? There is  _no_  way this isn't going to come back to bite us."

"Better question, who's really going to  _care_?" she shot back. "I took a peek into Skeeter's mind while she was still recovering from the spell, and do you know what I found out? She's practically a hermit! Every bridge she ever had, she's burned; no one – not her editor, not her photographer, not even her own damn family – wants anything to do with her beyond pure business. No one is going to be paying attention to any quirks she develops as a result of my work on her, and quite frankly, even if they do, they might consider it an improvement. The Baron knows she couldn't get much worse."

Cissy snorted disparagingly. "A contingency plan built around  _optimism_  isn't worth the time you wasted coming up with it."

"What, you think you could come up with a better way of dealing with it?" she snarled. "I watched and waited for two weeks, and none of you were getting anywhere with the  _Prophet_. None of you were going after Skeeter. Excuse me if I wanted to see a  _little_  progress!"

"And excuse me if I don't want to see my niece spending the next  _century in prison_!" yelled the other witch. Jen's head whipped backwards in surprise. "You think I give a damn about you making sure Skeeter never crosses us again? No, it's  _how you did it_  that's the problem, that and what we're going to do about it now. Do you recall how long you, Andi, and I spent discussing how we were going to hide the evidence of us performing your adoption so that no one could prove anything?" She nodded tentatively. "We don't have that same security if you start acting  _impulsively_. Any time you break the law in service to the House, it needs to be calculated, double- and triple-checked, and executed flawlessly; that's the Black way. It's why we're still at the top of the social pyramid even though everyone important knows we got here by butchering anyone who stood in our way. It isn't what people know, it's what they can prove in court."

"And what they can 'prove' in the public's eye," she added softly.

"That's what money and reputation are for. Even the most stalwart of social champions will back down once they know it means disaster for their friends and families." Cissy sighed and leaned forwards to grasp Jen's hands. "I know why you did what you did, and yes, in this case you might even be able to get away with it. But  _never_  do something like this again without at least telling me the plan so we can be sure that there isn't an obvious flaw that you overlooked."

She sighed. "Fine, I took a risk that I could have spent more effort minimizing. Happy now?" At Cissy's glare, she snarled, "Yes, I'll let you know in the future when I have an idea that will save us time, effort, and headaches, all right?"

" _Thank you_. That's all I'm asking for."

"Good." Pulling away, she dispersed the charms on the door. "You can come back in now, Rita."

The door slowly creaked open, and Skeeter gave them a weak smile. "Sorry?"

"Don't. Start," she said before her aunt could open her mouth. "Rita, there was one other rule I need you to follow that I forgot to mention the last time we spoke. Since Aunt Cissy is your primary contact, make sure you do everything she tells you to do unless it conflicts with one of my own orders, in which case explain why you can't do whatever it is. I doubt that will happen too often."

"And just what were those rules?" Cissy pressed.

"She is to act the same in public as she did prior to her 'enlightenment'; she's to keep an ear out for useful information without putting herself at risk; and she's to tell you what she learns unless it regards an immediate threat to me, at which point she is to send a letter to me directly as well as informing you."

The piebald witch nodded her head when she was done. "Okay, those rules should be general enough to work within without undue difficulties. Rita, have you anything to tell us about already before we start discussing who you should look into when you leave?"

"Not really…" The reporter trailed off for a moment before a hateful glint appeared in her eyes, an expression that looked far more natural to her face. "Actually, yes. I very much doubt that she's a  _danger_  to you, Mistress, but let me tell you what that bitch Hermione Granger did…"

* * *

**I swear, there are** _**so** _ **many characters in canon that we never see enough of. Just look at Flitwick! Not only is he part-goblin, and therefore someone who surely suffered prejudice at his schoolmates' and colleagues' hands, he's also a dueling champion, yet not once in the books or movies can I recall him really kicking ass and taking names. It's quite disappointing.**

**And yes, I did make him a less-wrinkled Yoda.** _**Star Trek** _ **last chapter,** _**Star Wars** _ **today; which sci-fi franchise shall I reference next time?**

**I've mentioned it before, but this is a good time for a reminder. For Narcissa, the family is more important than** _**anything** _ **else. Society, law, morality; if it interferes with the advancement and security of the House of Black, she couldn't care less.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	17. Hogwarts High Inquisitor?

**Do you want to know the problem with raising the semi-villains' intelligence? You have to** _**keep** _ **them like that, and then canon goes completely off the rails.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did Umbridge review every one of Harry's classes while he was present, even though as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor she already had seven years of classes of her own that she had to watch read their books? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 17  
** **Hogwarts High Inquisitor?**

Dolores Umbridge sighed as she straightened from the hunched-over position she had adopted while pouring over the curricula for the five years of classes she had volunteered to teach.  _Why did I think this was a good idea, again?_ , she griped in the privacy of her own mind.  _Oh yes, because someone has to be Cornelius_ _'_ _s eyes and ears in the castle, and if anyone_ _'_ _s going to get the job, why not someone who has his best interests at heart? Not to mention that if any heads were going to roll over Dumbledore putting one of his little minions in the Defense spot, I needed to make sure it wouldn_ _'_ _t be_ _ **mine**_.

At least it was not her who had to teach Defense. In hindsight, even though that was her initial plan, she would have been so far out of her depth that she would never be able to present herself as a knowledgable professor. History, however, was much more her speed. She had not been lying when she told the children that she was at the top of her class in the subject, and even better, what she had forgotten over the years she could rectify with a little bit of research.

 _And if that weren't good enough, History puts me in a better position to ensure that all those little impressionable minds have a firm grounding in the truth_ , she thought, her eyes roving over the books she was using as references. The names Nott, Attkisson, Maddox, and Lestrange, among others, looked back at her. The authors may be long dead, but history was one subject that never changed, so it was only proper that the students learn from recognized, right-thinking experts.

Far better than them believing the lies found within liberal, Muggle-loving propaganda.

A flash of green from the fireplace caught her attention, and she looked over to find none other than the Minister's face floating in the flames. "Cornelius," she greeted warmly. "I wondered when I would get your Floo call. It's been two weeks, and not a peep out of you. No calls, no letters…" She fluttered her eyelashes at him. "Why, it's almost like you forgot all about me."

"Er, no, of course not," he muttered uncomfortably. She had to work hard to suppress her smirk; she was fully aware that she was no looker, but she was pretty sure that Cornelius didn't know that she knew and had long accepted that fact. Acting coquettishly was therefore a very good way of keeping him off-balance. It was really quite amusing, not to mention it often got her something she wanted that she might not have received otherwise. "I just wanted to give you the time you needed to get all your lesson plans squared away. No distractions."

"Oh, pish. I've had those sorted for a while," she snorted with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I worked them all out with the DME, after all. Wars against near-humans for the first- and second-years, the achievements and legacies of famous witches and wizards for the third-years, international history and politics for the fourth-years, and the development of the Ministry for the fifth-years. Everything tidied up and  _in its place_ , just as it should be." She shook her head. "I remembered Binns being bad, but his lack of organization  _alone_ …"

He cut her off before she could go into her rant about orderliness yet again, which she was secretly thankful for; normally she had a better handle on it, but with the  _mess_  the ghost had left the class in, she had had a stressful couple of weeks. "Everything's taken care of now, though, and that's what matters, isn't it? Anyway, I was talking to Cromarty a few days ago, and he had some  _concerns_  about the High Inquisitor position."

"He  _what_? The DME better not be pulling out of this, not after all the work I'm going to have to put into it," she growled. She might  _like_  history, but that did  _not_ mean that her dream job was teaching it. The position of High Inquisitor was supposed to be the Ministry's road into Hogwarts, allowing them to make sure that the faculty were not overstepping their bounds and filling the children's heads with nonsense. The need to prevent Dumbledore's developing dementia, not to mention his abhorrent political views, from influencing the various heirs and heiresses of the Noble Houses just made the posting even  _more_  important.

Oh, she was sure Cornelius could push the measure through even without the assistance of the Department of Magical Education, but that department spearheading it added another layer of legitimacy to the proceedings. It also meant that it would be less likely to be seen as the Ministry extending its – rightful – authority over Hogwarts. The more it appeared to be a hostile takeover, the greater the chance that members of the Wizengamot would press for details and attempt to usurp the Ministry's efforts for their own gains.

Really, couldn't the old fools just stay in their fancy theatre and leave the actual running of the country to the duly appointed Minister?

"No, no, it's nothing like that," Cornelius was quick to reassure her. "It had nothing to do with the position itself, just how we were going to present it. He said that naming your new position after the Muggles who started the first international witch hunts, pointless though they were, was bad advertising. Let's not forget that Hogwarts is still Dumbledore's domain, no matter who much we plan to change that. It's in our best interest to give him as little footing to stand against us from as possible."

She nodded; much as she hated to admit it, that was a good point. "So what else has been changed other than the name?"

"Oh, just a couple of things. Now where's that list?…"

* * *

"Of course the owls would choose today to act funny," Tracey muttered on Monday morning, looking up at the multitude of birds flapping madly overhead. She had never taken Divination, so she wouldn't know an omen from an omelet, but nonetheless she worried that the owls' current behavior was somehow related to her choice to eat at the Ravenclaw table rather than with the other Snakes.

This was not her being superstitious. It was just… caution.

"Somehow, I rather doubt the owls are disturbed about where you're sitting," Jen chided, as if she could read the Slytherin's mind. Then again, considering what else she could do, it would not be all that surprising. Passing the platter of scones, she continued, "If anything, I expect it has to do with the newspapers they're all carrying."

She glanced up, trying to make out that detail amongst the overlapping avians. "How could you even know…" She trailed off when she looked back down to see the Black heiress tap the corner of one closed eye. "Oh, right. That. You've got to teach me how to do that some time."

Being able to use ambient magic to know where things were, even walk around, without needing to see? That was just too useful a skill to pass up on.

Jen shrugged. "Honestly, I doubt I can. I don't really even understand how  _I_  do it."

"Look, it's fine if you two want to keep your little secrets," Patil snarked, "but if so, could you  _please_  not hint about them in public where it bugs the rest of us? It makes me think you're just doing it to make us ask about them."

"My apologies, Padma. It's nothing important, just a little parlor trick I know that Tracey is jealous of," Jen said in an attempt to smooth the Indian girl's ruffled feathers. Shooting the visiting Slytherin a quick glare, she continued, "If it bothers you that much, however, we'll do better to keep it between ourselves in the future."

Tracey rolled her eyes. She knew what her best friend's look meant:  _'Be glad I'm not holding your mistake against you… this time'_. It was an expression she routinely received at home, though Jen filled it with far less venom than her aunts and uncles. "Yeah, all right. Sorry about stringing you along, Patil."

"It's fine," the other witch replied in a distracted tone as an owl floated down and thrust out its leg. Untying the copy of the  _Daily Prophet_  and dropping a few knuts into the attached pouch, Patil unrolled the newspaper and frowned at the headline. "Huh.  _That_  is unexpected."

"Well, don't keep us in suspense. What is it?"

Before the Raven could answer MacDougal's question, the doors to the Great Hall opened, and Umbridge walked in. Taking a short glance at the assembled students' and faculty's faces, she huffed in that annoying little girl voice of hers. "I was hoping to get here in time to explain what was going on before the  _Prophet_  was delivered. I suppose that was too much to ask for."

"Professor Umbridge," McGonagall demanded, standing up behind the staff table and waving a copy of the news viciously. "What is the meaning of this?"

"And  _this_  is why I wanted to tell everyone first." Sighing, the fat woman continued, "For everyone who has yet to read today's article, the head of the Department of Magical Education and I met over the weekend to discuss the frankly deplorable state of the History class prior to my arrival. During that conversation, the question of whether other classes might be suffering the same problem, if to a lesser extent, came up, and it was decided that each subject needed to be evaluated to prevent such a thing from happening. Hence the creation of the new, and  _temporary_ ," she stressed, "office of Hogwarts Independent Curriculum Inspector. Since I am already here on the grounds and a recent hire to boot, the DME decided that I would work perfectly as an impartial evaluator."

Umbridge looked around the room for a moment. "Now, I can already hear the rumors that will undoubtedly soon be flying around the castle, and I'd like to make something very clear before anyone worries herself sick. This new position is not meant to be a punishment, a conspiracy, or an inquisition. My  _only_  goal as your Inspector is to ensure that Hogwarts is still the pinnacle of education that it has long been, and in those places where it  _has_  fallen behind, to find ways to bring it back up to the exacting standard history has set.

"I expect my inspections will take no more than a couple of weeks, and if everything works out as I hope it will, that will be the end of it. If there  _are_ deficiencies…" The toad-like woman hesitated for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders and concluded, "Well, those will have to be examined on a case-by-case basis. Thank you all for your time; please, continue with your breakfasts."

The door had barely closed behind her when the chattering started, all the students whispering to their neighbors about the newest surprise. Tracey might not be a Ravenclaw, but she was astute enough in political machinations to realize what was going on. "Well,  _that_ was certainly interesting."

"Indeed," Jen agreed, an amused smile playing on her lips. "So the Ministry now has an official spy in Hogwarts. I wonder how this is all going to play out."

"But I thought Hogwarts was supposed to be autonomous," pointed out MacDougal.

She and Jen both opened their mouths to reply, and in an unusual show of generosity, the Black heiress waved her hand to invite Tracey to give the explanation. "It is, technically, but autonomy doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as  _independence_. The Ministry can't decide what should be taught or how classes should be organized or what food the house-elves should prepare, but Hogwarts is still a school, and that means the DME has at least minimal oversight. They don't often  _use_  it, or Binns would have been sacked years ago, but  _'don't'_  isn't the same as  _'can't'_."

Lovegood frowned slightly, slowing in the stirring of her porridge. "But if they're able, and even obligated, to make sure everything's running smoothly, why  _haven't_ they?"

"Because they don't want to step on anyone's toes," Jen answered, pointing a finger at herself and Tracey. "Hogwarts is considered the best school in the country, which is why nearly all the Noble Houses send their kids here. We aren't the majority, obviously, but  _too_  much interference could still cause problems the Ministry doesn't want to deal with."

"So why are they doing it now if they haven't before?" Patil echoed Lovegood's question.

Tracey shrugged, but Jen simply smirked and beckoned them to lean in closer. "This isn't common knowledge, but do you remember last year, when that man claiming to be You-Know-Who kidnapped Cedric and me?" They four girls all nodded, and Tracey had to suppress a shudder. Having her best friend vanish for half an hour, then reappear bloody and twitching from being  _tortured_  was something she never wanted to experience again. "Well, despite me explaining that I didn't know if that was really You-Know-Who or not, Dumbledore still ran with that opinion and was pestering Fudge to militarize the Ministry. He stopped once he was removed as Britain's representative to the ICW, but from what I understand, he's now making moves all on his own. This is probably a response to that."

"Do you think that's all it is? Just a reminder that he's not as all-powerful as he likes to think he is?" the lone Slytherin asked even as she went over the new information she had just received. She made a habit of keeping her ears open in the Snake Pit – originally for her own safety, and then because it was her side of the deal that was the foundation of her friendship with Jen – but she could not remember hearing  _anything_ about this, and she knew it would have been big news among her housemates. Britain had not been militarized for over a century, and no one wanted to return to that.

_Her Head of House used to be part of Dumbledore_ _'_ _s camp, didn_ _'_ _t he? Maybe that_ _'_ _s how she found out; I could see it being something he would tell his supporters. There_ _'_ _s nothing better to stir people up against the Man than make them think their hero_ _'_ _s being persecuted._

Unaware of her musings, Jen hesitated a moment before shaking her head. "It could be, but I don't think so. If that were all the Ministry wanted to do, forcing him to take Umbridge in against his will – and from what I heard, he was  _not_  happy about it – would have been enough. This doesn't feel right for that, anyway. It's too soon after their last move, and too aggressive, to boot. I want to say that it seems…  _personal_."

"And there's nothing Dumbledore can do about it?" MacDougal asked.

Tracey rolled her eyes at that. She sometimes forgot that few outside Slytherin house recognized Dumbledore for the manipulative old goat he was, and most of those people were either rather Dark themselves – Jen sprang to mind – or had family in the Wizengamot, like Bones, and therefore knew more about his political maneuvering. For everyone else, he was primarily the hero of the Grindelwald War and the 'wise' headmaster of Hogwarts. "How could he? There's no way he could block that without looking like he had something to hide from the DME, and that would blow up in his face  _magnificently_. Besides, didn't you hear the way Umbridge phrased her announcement? She's portraying herself as someone who wants the best for the school, and whether or not she really does, moving against her in this would just make him look like the bad guy. All he can do is hope that all the staff pass muster, and after being in Hagrid's class and what I've heard about Trelawney, that's  _never_  going to happen."

* * *

True to Tracey's prediction, later that very day rumors sprang up that Umbridge's audit of the fourth-year Divination class had ended with Trelawney in tears and several of the few students who still believed in the subject disillusioned when the professor could not make even a single credible prognostication. Strangely, however, Umbridge did not make another move that day or the next.

That meant it was a bit surprising to the combined fifth-year Ravenclaws and Slytherins when they entered McGonagall's classroom on Wednesday to find the two professors in the middle of a glaring match.

 _I suppose it makes sense that she would be doing this at irregular intervals. After all, she does have her own classes to teach_ , Jen thought as she took a seat next to Padma. The Hindu witch was the most talented of her friends at Transfiguration, and for the OWL year, McGonagall had so far chosen not to demonstrate as extensively as she had the previous year, expecting them instead to be able to wave their wands and pronounce bad Latin according to her verbal directions. It was quite irritating for the sole wandless caster of the class. So far they had covered only a couple of spells, both of which she had already learned, but she knew as the class went on that she would have to wait until someone – again, probably Padma – got the day's transformation to work correctly so she could duplicate the weave of the spell.

Noticing the students filling the room, the two witches broke off their exchange and returned to their respective corners: McGonagall behind her desk and Umbridge in a chair against the wall. Clearing her throat, the Scotswoman began, "Today we will be continuing our discussion regarding the vanishment of animate objects. As you should recall from the last few classes, vanishing animals is wholly different and far more difficult than vanishing inanimate objects or ensorcelled objects, such as potions and the like. Most of you have by now successfully vanished your snails, and even those who were left with a certain amount of shell have the gist of the spell. The vanishing spell becomes more difficult with both the size and complexity of the animal to be vanished; the snails, as invertebrate, do not present much of a challenge compared to the lizards we will be working with today. Today and our first period next week will be dedicated to practicing with reptiles, and I have hopes that by October at the latest you will be able to successfully vanish mice. You all know the incantation, so let me see what you can do."

Jen grinned and had to bite down on an evil giggle as the professor levitated their lizards to them. Vanishing was one spell Elsie had forced her to learn early due to its sheer utility, and so she knew what would happen at least once in this class.

" _Eww_!" Lisa Turpin yelled a few minutes later upon managing to vanish the skin and muscles of her lizard… and only the skin and muscles. Apparently her fellow Raven did not enjoy having reptile innards spilling out onto her desk and dripping into her lap.

Gently petting the little lizard curled up in her hands to calm it down, she felt a privacy charm go up around the two adult witches. Now curious, a quick wiggle of her fingers cast a listening charm onto the desk, allowing her to eavesdrop despite the field of silence. "—just a few routine questions, nothing to be worried about. Tell me, how long have you been teaching at Hogwarts?" Umbridge asked, her quill poised above the roll of parchment in her lap.

"Thirty-nine years this December."

If the rotund witch was put off by McGonagall's brusque tone, she gave no sign of it. "That would be in 1956, then. And you graduated from Hogwarts in '45? What were you doing in the years in between?"

"I spent four years attaining my Transfiguration Mastery under Anton Yenkov, and then another seven teaching Transfiguration at St. Nicholas Magical Academy in Cornwall." The black-haired educator sniffed disparagingly. "It is  _preferred_  for professors at this school to have prior experience in their fields."

"Yenkov… I can't say I've ever heard of him. He must not have been well-published." Before McGonagall could respond to Umbridge's catty remark, she continued, "You are the head of Gryffindor house and the deputy headmistress as well, correct? Do you find it difficult to balance the demands of your many positions?"

"No, I do not," the Transfiguration professor ground out. "If that is all, I  _do_  have a class to teach."

"Of course, of course. However, could you get a copy of your curriculum for all five years to me in the next couple of days? It doesn't have to be long," Umbridge added in what could generously be called a reassuring tone, "just an overview would be fine."

"Why?"

The short witch grinned humorlessly. "Well, I could hardly call myself a  _'Curriculum Inspector'_  if I didn't inspect the curricula, now could I? I'll send you the results of your evaluation once I've finished everyone else's review."

"Very well." The charm collapsed, and McGonagall stalked away, her temper practically billowing off her. "Ms. Black, I don't see you performing the spell."

Her magic flexed, allowing her to open her hand and show how it was now empty. "That's because I already vanished the lizard, Professor."

McGonagall paused for a moment to take a few deep breaths; perhaps she should not have taunted the woman so soon after that little spat? "Take another one off my desk and keep practicing. Make sure it wasn't just a fluke."

"Yes, Professor." She eyed their rapidly writing guest with interest as she walked to the front of the room.  _And the plot thickens. If she really made Trelawney break out in tears and can even get under even perpetually stoic McGonagall's skin, the next couple of weeks are going to be_ _ **far**_ _more amusing than a government inspection has any right to be_.

* * *

" _Baron modi limyé majik la!"_  Jen screamed in pain, cradling her burned hands. "Damn it, that's  _all_  wrong." Her carefully nurtured hatred flowed through her magic, slowly returning the flesh of her hands to its previous unblemished state. "And I was  _sure_  that was the part I'm looking for."

_Knock, knock._

"What?!"

There was a pause, and then from behind the door Luna tentatively asked, "Jen? Is it okay if I come in?"

"Yeah, sure," she replied with a sigh.

The door to her little lab of sorts creaked open, and the blonde poked her head inside. "Are you all right? You didn't sound happy just then."

"Considering I've been repeatedly torching my hands for nearly an hour, no, I'm not happy at all," Jen admitted. A snap of her fingers cleared the blackboard she had been working on, and the liberated chalk dust coalesced back into a large tree-like shape of numbers and symbols, an exact copy of the arithmantic formula scribbled on a sheet of parchment stuck to the wall next to the board. She muttered to herself, "I'm tempted to scrap this entirely, but it's too important. Unfortunately."

"What is that?" Luna wondered, creeping closer to stare in awe at the formula. "I don't think Vector's shown us  _anything_  this complex. This is one of your personal projects, isn't it? Like how you were working on that taming spell."

"Worse. With that spell, I was just trying to interpret it.  _This_ , though…" She shook her head. "This I'm trying to  _modify_  into something I'm capable of casting. It's not going so well."

The younger witch smiled and started bouncing on her heels. "Maybe I could help. What spell is it?"

"It's the Patronus charm. Unfortunately, I very much doubt you'll be able to help. I think the problem is that it's not supposed to be cast wandlessly," she lied in a sad tone. She  _would_  appreciate some assistance, but that was just not possible. Her situation was a problem that came with being a black witch: with her magic so skewed towards the darkness, the result of being the avatar of a Dark Power, she was incapable of casting any form of light magic. If she tried, the spell she was molding simply fell apart, damaging her flesh to such an extent that only dark healing magic could fix it.

She would prefer never being in a position where she  _needed_  to use light magic to save herself, but for now she had to operate under the presumption that Voldemort had some means to control the Dementors that had vanished from Azkaban; the idea that those demons could approach her and force her to relive her worst memories, leaving her defenseless, any time she was outside Hogwarts or her home was unacceptable. It was widely known that the only spell that could affect them was the Patronus, and though there still remained the possibility that there were other spells equally effective that might be usable by a black witch, she had no idea what they were, assuming they even existed. That meant her only recourse was deceptively simple: she had to experiment with the formula for the Patronus charm, isolate the element or elements that were responsible for making it light magic, and replace those segments of the equation with something that would twist it into a darker variant.

All this despite the fact that as far as her research could find, no one fully understood how this spell worked, and just to make things interesting, the aspect of the spell she was looking for was something the vast majority of people knew nothing about and that she could not handle without seriously injuring herself. Simple, right?

 _I. Am._ _ **Buggered**_ , she thought, glancing over the formula again and letting her eyes drift down to the pile of books she had duplicated in the library. Normally the books in Pince's domain were protected against any form of alteration, including copying, but after a few minutes' research she had become lost and desperate enough to break the protective charms. She would much rather no one ask too many questions about why she needed to check out a dozen texts relating to the Patronus charm. While most people would probably dismiss it as her trying to learn it, it was the few who would  _not_  assume such a thing that she had to worry about. There was no telling what they would do with the information.

Luna's gaze had not once left the formula, but she commented, "Er, Jen? I think this time you might have bitten off more than you can chew."

"Tell me about it," she sighed, dropping into a convenient chair and cradling her head in her hands. "This would be bad enough if it was  _all_  I had to do, but there's also weekly dueling training with Flitwick, self-study for the ICW exam I'm taking this summer,  _and_ normal classes and homework. I swear, I don't know whether to laugh, cry, or break down babbling incomprehensibly."

"I'm pretty sure they send you to St. Mungo's for that last one," the blonde said helpfully.

She glanced up and grinned weakly. "Maybe I'd be put next to the Longbottoms. Wouldn't that be ironic?" At Luna's disapproving look, she sighed. "All right, yes, that one probably crossed a line. I suppose I'm left with either laughing or crying, then."

"Unfortunately, picking which one you want to do will have to wait. We have Ancient Runes in fifteen minutes."

"I suppose it could be worse. If we had Arithmancy, I'd just refuse to go," she said, allowing Luna to pull her to her feet. Once they had left the room, she closed the door and was about to activate the 'locking' runes she had carved into the door when a disquieting thought sprang to mind. "Luna? How did you even know where I was?"

"Hmm? Oh, I just asked the Whibblestumper, and he led me to you." Jen had to think for a moment to remember Luna's description of that particular manifestation: a nine-legged puppy of sorts, if she recalled correctly. "I was curious where you had gotten off to, especially since you disappeared halfway through lunch and no one knew where you went."

She nodded in understanding even as she began wondering how she could possibly throw off an instinctual tracking charm based on a magical metaphor. Yet another thing added to her plate. "Could you keep this place a secret, please? I was kind of hoping that I could use it as a private retreat as well as a lab, and that would be a pointless goal if all of you know where to find it."

"Sure," answered Luna without a moment's hesitation. "Your secrets are safe with me."

 _I certainly hope so_.

* * *

**I know it's shorter than usual, but this was honestly the best stopping point at the moment.**

**Maybe it's because I know more about anatomy than J.K. does, or maybe it's because I'm not writing a children's story, but I can't help but feel that Transfiguration, especially where animals are involved, would be a very gross class.**

**Also, before anyone calls me on it (and I know someone will), I am** _**fully** _ **aware that this chapter conflicts with the biography given for McGonagall on Pottermore. I don't have a Pottermore account, and my apologies to J.K., but I personally don't consider anything outside the books to be definitively canon. Not to mention, several things I've seen that supposedly come from there contradict what she wrote earlier, anyway (for instance, McGonagall is supposedly the head of the Transfiguration** _**department** _ **, despite the fact that she was the** _**sole** _ **current Transfiguration teacher mentioned in the books).**

**Silently Watches out.**


	18. Sleep Like the Dead

**A quick announcement before we start. I started my clinical rotations on August 1, but since it was family practice and therefore 8–5 Monday through Friday, my writing schedule was minimally disrupted. The next few months, however, I'm in the ER, OR, and doing hospital rounds, so depending on when my preceptors want me around and what they specifically have me doing, I can't guarantee that I'll be able to post a chapter of this or** _**Vegas** _ **every Wednesday as is my wont.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did Umbridge go out of her way to antagonize the other members of the faculty? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 18  
** **Sleep Like the Dead**

It was the cold that woke Jen. Despite the fact that the calendar had yet to reach October, for some reason her feet were absolutely  _freezing_. She curled her legs up against her chest and pulled the sheet of her bed tighter around her to better contain her body heat, but that did not stop a sudden chill from sliding along the side of her thigh from knee to hip.

 _Is this some kind of prank or something?_ , she wondered sleepily as she started to stretch out her sonar. While she slept, her sixth – and still primary, despite having regained her sight – sense naturally shrank to only a few meters to keep nearby activity from disturbing her rest; at this range, all she could feel was the furniture, Luna's sleeping form, and a faint, almost haze-like distortion positioned at the side of her bed that became slightly clearer as her awareness widened. A suspicion forming, she opened her eyes and shot an unamused glare at the ghost looking down at her.

"I think I liked you better when you were avoiding me."

The female ghost shrugged. While her transparent pallor washed away all her color, what little of her figure could be seen from under her ever-present cloak made the dark witch believe that she had likely been a beautiful woman while she still lived. Normally she also wore a stern, haughty expression that most students found off-putting, but right now she looked almost… fearful.

Her interest piqued at what could possibly scare a ghost, Jen asked, "What brings the Grey Lady into my chambers tonight? And at—" She magicked her pocket watch open on her desk and felt the hands. "—just past three in the morning on a Saturday?"

Rather than say what she wanted – not terribly surprising; there were many, Ravenclaws included, who doubted she  _could_  talk – the ghost floated a few paces away before turning around. Raising a hand, she beckoned the girl to follow.

Jen was having none of that. "Look, I'm not getting out of this bed and going with you to who-knows-where without a damn good reason. I have stuff to do tomorrow, and unlike you, I actually need to sleep."

The Grey Lady glared at her for a moment or two, but just when she was about to close her eyes again, the ghost finally spoke in a stiff tone. "Your presence is required at the top of the Astronomy Tower, priestess."

"Say  _what_?!"

The apparition took flight and slipped through the stones of the ceiling rather than answer. Her fatigue now gone, Jen leapt out of the bed. Her magic pushed the heavy window open while her body melted and crumpled, and a ink-black owl soon soared through the night sky. From her dormitory in the Ravenclaw Tower, it would have taken her nearly half an hour to catch up to the spectral woman by foot, and that was assuming that she threw caution to the wind and took no special efforts to sneak around. While staff and prefect patrols ended at one, the same time as the Astronomy classes, Filch was a well-known insomniac and could often be found skulking through the corridors at odd hours. Flying was safer, and on the wing she could reach her destination in only a couple of minutes.

Her sight in this particular avian form was better than what she had as a human, especially at night, and so she quickly spotted the pearly glow just barely shining from the top of the tower. As she approached, however, she was surprised. It was not just the Grey Lady waiting for her, but also a thin man in a ruffled shirt, a fat ghost in a habit, and a third man bound in chains with silvery blood splashed all over him. She flew over the railing of the tower and returned to her human shape, conjuring a loose black dress decorated with gleaming metal around her contorting flesh.

She had to look nice if she was going to have a meeting with all four house ghosts.

The top of the tower was quiet except for a few small cracks as she stretched her back, the phantoms watching her with wary eyes while she, in turn, watched them in unabashed curiosity. After several long moments, the ghost with the elaborate collar, the one saddled with the embarrassing moniker of Nearly Headless Nick, cleared his throat. "So you made it. That's… that's good. Did, er… The Grey Lady has already explained to you why we invited you here, yes?"

"No, she didn't." Jen replied, sending him a cold smile. To her slight amusement and even greater confusion, the Gryffindor ghost took a hasty step backward. "I wouldn't have come out here at all had she not addressed me by a very strange title. Would you care to explain why you called me a  _priestess_?" The lone female ghost shook her head, her long tresses swishing, and the living witch thought she could almost feel the distortion in the magical currents that was the lone evidence of ghost's presence twitch. Her expression sharpened. "That wasn't a request."

"She called you a priestess because that is what you are," came a gravely voice, and she turned her eyes on the Bloody Baron. Unlike the supposedly brave former Lion, the dead Slytherin met her gaze squarely and continued, "After so long a time being separated from our bodies and the pounding drumbeats of life, we are familiar with the cold silence of Death. His power lingers around you like an echo; it  _stains_  you. You have no acolytes, no coven, but that alone can not hide from us that you are his priestess."

 _Well now,_ _ **that**_ _is certainly interesting. And not in a good way._  Tilting her head to one side, she remarked in a calmer voice than she felt, "You say you can identify Death's touch upon me. Does that mean I have to worry about you four revealing that little fact to other people?"  _Namely Dumbledore?_

The Fat Friar shook her head, his girth shaking as he denied, "No, you do not. We have nothing to gain by directing your ire at us. Even should we wish to do such a thing, Lady Hogwarts does not permit any of us to repeat the secrets of a student."

"Lady Hogwarts?" she repeated, her curious look changing into a grimace. She still remembered the single prior encounter she had had with the sentience of the castle, when she had refused the Sorting Hat leave to riffle through her memories. It had not been a pleasant or comfortable experience. "Why would Hogwarts not want you to repeat secrets?"

The Gryffindor and Hufflepuff ghosts shrugged their shoulders, but the Grey Lady and the Bloody Baron exchanged a weighty look. The Ravens' spectral representative then spread her hands wide. "Uncle Salazar was the one who carved all the castle's runes, who erected all the wards. He poured his hopes and dreams, his very self, into his work. That Lady Hogwarts would take on some of his traits is not terribly surprising."

"But that is not why we called you here," Nick interjected before she could reply to that. She glared at him; two of the house ghosts – and the ones no one in living memory had ever conversed with, to boot – were from the Founder's period, had considered them  _family_  in the Grey Lady's case, and he was going to keep her from questioning them while she had the chance? The various apparitions residing in the castle had always avoided her, so what were the odds that she would be able to track down the Grey Lady again after tonight? It was not as if she could just feel around for them with her sonar as she could a living human; from a magical standpoint, ghosts were barely there, little more than cold and light, and their faint presences were easily drowned out by the rest of the magic in the school. He grimaced at her expression and continued weakly, "We want… That is, we would appreciate it if you would be willing to do just a  _small_ favor for us."

 _A favor?_  Her temper diverted for the moment but not forgotten, Jen hummed quietly and cocked her head again. "And just what kind of favor do you think I can do for you?"

"It's Cuthbert, you see," the Fat Friar explained. "Ever since that Ministry woman came and stole his job from him, he has been quite despondent. He has even begun losing his grip on the now and letting his mind drift to his past. If he continues like this, he will change, losing bits of himself as his sense of self breaks apart and he is stuck simply going through the motions."

"From what everyone says, you're a bit late heading  _that_  off. Five years of classes, and he supposedly teaches very little aside from the goblin rebellions and the giant wars. I didn't even  _go_  to any of his classes after the first one last year. Umbridge may be a Ministry stooge, but she's still a better teacher than Binns."

That had been a pleasant surprise, all things considered. Umbridge taught rather than putting them all to sleep, and considering that the Blacks had been involved in the Wizengamot since the ninth century, Jen knew that understanding more about how the British Ministry had been founded and worked in the present era could only be helpful. That was not to say that  _everyone_  liked the newest professor; the students who leaned especially toward the Light, including a significant fraction of the Gryffindors, were incensed that the authors of many of the references she used to prepare her lessons were from Houses known to support blood purity and the Old Ways, and Jen herself had noticed that there was some Dark ideology strewn about the curriculum. It was subtle, but it was there.

The Friar shuddered. "Cuthbert has his problems, yes, but while I acknowledge that he was never the most engaging of speakers, his issues now are no joking matter. As time passes without some goal or purpose anchoring him to this world, he will slip farther and farther away until he vanishes completely. His very  _soul_  will crumble to nothingness, destined for oblivion rather than a true life after death."

"Oh yes, you're right. That's absolutely terrible," she replied in a bland tone. "Can't say I see how it's  _my_ problem, though."

"Please, you must help!" Nick demanded. "Already he is beginning to degrade, and it has only been three weeks. We have spoken with him, but nothing we said or did could turn him away from this road. At this rate, Cuthbert will vanish within the month!"

She rolled her eyes with a sigh. "Again, what happens to Binns isn't my concern. You want me to help him in some way, though I have no clue what it is that you could even want me to do, and you have yet to give me a good reason to consider helping you. I'm not necessarily  _adverse_  to your request, but I don't do anything for  _free_."

The four ghosts held a silent conversation with their eyes, then the Bloody Baron stepped forward again. "Aid us in this, and we as a group will owe you one favor to be repaid at a later date, so long as your request is within our capabilities, does not conflict with the vows we made to Hogwarts, and does not tarnish our honor."

"I'll agree with the first two conditions, but not the last. That makes it too easy for you to duck out of our agreement if you don't like what I want you to do," she argued back. Nick and the Friar looked affronted at that, but her focus was on the Slytherin. "And I want a favor from each of you, not the four of you as a group."

"You ask much for a single task. A favor from our council, and an additional one from me personally, both under your amended conditions," was the ghost's counteroffer.

"A task you imply only I can complete." Jen thought for a moment, then shot a quick glance at her own house's representative. "A favor from your council, another from you, and a third from the Grey Lady. Tonight has raised questions about what the Founders were like that I will definitely want some answers to," she explained when the Bloody Baron opened his mouth to argue.

The Ravenclaw ghost nodded after a moment of thought, and he concluded, "Two favors, one from us as a group and one from me, and an interview with the Grey Lady in which she will tell you about the Founders. This is agreeable to you?"

"Perfectly." He bowed to her at that. "So, what exactly do you want me to do to get Binns out of his slump? If it's getting him his job back, I hope you realize that's not my decision."

"Unfortunately, it is nothing so innocent," the Friar sighed. "Now that he has lost his focus, it is highly unlikely that he can regain the ability to maintain himself in this world. The only recourse left is for you to release him from his bonds."

She blinked. "Come again?"

"When wizards die, those afraid of seeing what is promised to them in their next life are capable of leaving an imprint of who they were on the world to walk in death where they had trod in life. Unfortunately, we quickly learned that we could not change our decision; we are trapped here, even if we ultimately come to regret our choice. You, however, pervert yourself at Death's altar, and your idol has the power to forcibly send us on to our eternal rest."

"A friar who was afraid of what waited for him on the other side?" Jen asked with a cruel smile. "You must not have been a very good Catholic."

"How dare you!" he roared in fury. "In life I was William of Ockham, and though the pope may have rejected the truth of my studies, that does not mean…"

She tuned out the pontificating ghost to consider the explanation he had given.  _Idol, idol_ _…_ _Does he mean my dagger? If being a black witch in service to the Baron makes me his priestess, then I suppose the tool I use to_ _'_ _commune_ _'_ _with him could qualify._  "And what am I supposed to do with my Death Focus once I seek him out? Just wave it around and tell him he's banished from this plane?"

"How are we supposed to know?" Nick asked in disbelief. "You are the one who serves Death."

Sighing grumpily, she just shook her head and walked toward the edge of the parapet.  _Great, not only do I have to exorcise a ghost, I_ _ **also**_ _have to figure out just how I_ _'_ _m supposed to do that._ _This is_ _ **exactly**_ _what I wanted to do with my night_.

* * *

"Why didn't I ask where he was when I had the chance?" Jen growled, her fingers tapping an impatient rhythm on the bone dagger tucked into the waistband of her trousers. While she was in her dormitory grabbing her focus, she had also taken a moment to get dressed; there was no reason to walk through the halls only barely clothed, especially when an encounter with Filch was still a possibility. Sensing him with her sonar at range was a difficult task, as he lacked a magical core that would stand out from all the energy flowing in the background.

Then again, she could always rewrite his memory if he  _did_  catch her, so perhaps she was being overly cautious.

 _Probably because I tend not to walk around with my Death Focus at hand._ _Just_ _possessing one of these is a felony, after all_ , she thought as she stuck her head into the library and carefully felt around the cavernous room. So far tonight, she had already searched the ghost's former quarters, his office, and the staff lounge, and she still had no idea where her target was hiding.  _And he's not here, either. Where could he have run off to?_

"All right, let's look at this another way," she murmured softly. "I'm a ghost. I've been teaching the same class for some three hundred years. I have nothing else to do with my time. Where would I be at night…" She trailed off as an idea sprang to mind. "No, it couldn't be that simple. Could it?"

Taking to the air, she flew through the halls and down the stairwell, her journey going unseen by the portraits along the walls as she needed no light to find her way through the darkened corridors. Once on the fourth floor, it was just a couple minutes' travel to the door of the former History of Magic classroom.  _Umbridge had to move to a different room for her lessons. And why would she do that_ — she opened the door — _unless Binns refused to move out?_

Sure enough, the spirit of the professor was floating in the air in front of the empty desks. "…This conflict would have continued for far longer had it not been for the rise of Emeric the Evil, one of the shortest-lived Dark Lords in our nation's history— Miss Perkins? What are you doing here?"

"Better question, what are  _you_  doing here?" She pointed at the unoccupied chairs. "You  _do_  realize that no one else is here, don't you?"

"What are you talking… about…" The ghost trailed off as he looked again, and his frown clearly told her that, in fact, he had not known that. "Where is everyone?"

"It's almost four in the morning," she replied, stepping inside and closing the door behind her quietly. "Everyone with any sense is sound asleep."

"But… When…" Binns shook his head. "I don't understand. I… always teach at this time, and students are here."

She sighed. As she had told the Fat Friar, the spectral professor had long ago started losing his mind. "I wouldn't trust your memories if I were you. No one pays attention in your class. You didn't even get my name right, for the Baron's sake. You're stuck who knows how many  _decades_  in the past, and it's long past time you moved on." She began walking toward him, her hand taking a more secure grip on the dagger.

"Move… on? Move on to where? Hogwarts, teaching… This is my  _life_."

"It  _was_  your life, but not anymore. You've been forcibly retired, you're dead; there's nothing left for you here." In a gentle tone, she pressed, "It's time you left this realm. You belong in Guinea, in the afterlife."

"Afterlife," he scoffed, his pale gaze growing clearer and more focused as he latched onto that particular word. "I deal in  _facts_ , not baseless myth. You seem like a smart girl, so you should know there is no such thing. It's a foolish belief, one created to give a measure of meager comfort to a more primitive people. Being a ghost is the closest thing one can get to this idea of life after death, and I see no reason to abandon it, not when I still have so much knowledge to share with the world." He nodded stiffly to her. "Thank you for reminding me of my duties; I have been remiss, it seems. I will see you in class."

Jen bared her teeth in an ugly snarl; she did not take kindly to being dismissed like some errant child. "Sorry, old man, but the deal I made with the other ghosts was to get rid of you. If I don't fulfill my end of the bargain, I don't get my favors." He ignored her and began drifting toward the wall. "Get back here!" she snapped, flinging her left hand out futilely.

Binns jerked to a stop.

Girl and ghost stared at each other before simultaneously looking down to where her fingers were wrapped around his wrist. He tried to pull away, but despite his tugging, his hand did not slip through her grasp. His incorporeal form had no substance, no texture, but when she gently squeezed her arm, she could feel a pressure pushing back at her.

 _So… Apparently I can touch ghosts_ , was the first coherent thought she had as she brought her right hand up.  _Is it because I'm one of the Baron's avatars? I've channeled his power in my rituals, so it gives me a foothold in his realm? Something to consider later_.

"Let me—  _Argh_!" She released her grip on him and watched him stagger away, a blade carved from human bone sticking grotesquely out of his back. The Fat Friar  _had_  said that her 'idol' was the key to sending Binns on to the afterlife, and after her discovery that she could touch spirits, the means were clear. Ghosts were not properly dead; their deaths simply did not 'take'.

To forcibly send a ghost on, all she had to do was finish the job.

Binns collapsed to the ground and turned blank eyes to her even as his form started to waver and the magic flowing through his insubstantial shape twisted noticeably. "You… you've killed me.  _Murdered_  me."

"Yeah, I get that a lot. Don't go thinking you're special." Stepping over him, she ripped the knife out and repositioned it over his chest where his heart would have been when he was alive. She flipped the serrated blade in her hand and bared her teeth in a parody of a smile. "Now this time, stay dead."

Bone plunged down and into the vaporous ectoplasm composing his form. He spasmed, his mouth open in a silent scream, and patches of his shell flickered in and out of visibility. With one final gasp, he crumbled, losing definition and billowing out along the stones of the floor. Three seconds later, there was nothing left of the late Cuthbert Binns, and her Focus clattered to the floor.

"I think this was probably the most convenient kill I've ever made," she said to herself, slipping the dagger back into her trousers. "No body to get rid of, and no one who cares enough to go out looking for him. If only every cleanup was this easy."

"It is done?"

She jumped and spun around to glare at the ghost that had just slipped in unannounced. Covering her pounding heart with one hand, she demanded, "How long have you been watching me?"

Nearly Headless Nick shook his aforementioned head and grabbed onto it to keep it from falling off. "I have not been watching you; every ghost in the castle could feel when he passed. It was… frightening."

"The feel of his second death, or the reminder that despite being ghosts, you're still mortal under the right circumstances?" she pressed. He did not answer, and she shrugged. "Yes, it's done. Just like I told the Friar, his mind was basically gone already. He didn't even know that there was no one here listening to him."

"I understand," Nick said with a sad sigh. "Thank you for completing this dark deed for us. Though distasteful, it  _was_  necessary."

She shrugged. "Sure, if you say so. Anything else you want me to do in the middle of the night, or can I finally get back to bed?"

"No, I don't believe so," he answered, stepping aside so she had a clear path to the door. "Good night, Miss Black."

* * *

"It was horrible," Nicholas said with a shudder as he recounted the story to the four others standing before him. "Cuthbert had regained his senses; I could see it in his eyes. And she just  _stabbed_  him like his existence meant nothing!"

"What were you expecting, Porpington?" Marcus asked dismissively, the chains around him rattling as he adjusted his blood-stained coat. "She is a priestess of  _Death_. All who choose to worship a dark god are likewise tainted as a matter of course, and Death is a dread master, indeed. I explained that to Master Salazar many times, for all the good it did."

"It is wrong to wish ill on anyone, I know this, but I can't say I would mind her being banished from the castle the same way your master was."

"None of us are  _pleased_  with her being here any more than you are," Helena said in stern tone.  _'Comforting'_ and  _'understanding'_  were never words he, or anyone else, would use to describe the eldest of the house ghosts. "Still, Death is rarely needlessly cruel provided one does not insult him, and in general, neither are his followers. So long as we give her no offense, we have little to fear."

"You assume that heathen is one of those who can be trusted," William stubbornly countered.

"And you are just angry at being the recipient of her sharp tongue."

In silent agreement with Helena about the reason behind the Hufflepuff's attitude, Nicholas nevertheless asked, "Is there nothing we can do to  _ensure_  that she will not force us away as we asked her to do to Cuthbert?"

"Jennifer Black will keep to her end of the bargain," the fifth figure replied, stepping lightly to the edge of the tower. Though translucent just like the others, it was obvious that she was not a ghost; her human skin tone and green gown guaranteed that, though her hair was the same white as the rest of the spirits'. "If you trust nothing else about her, trust that her honor is intact enough for that."

"But that does not change the fact that she is dangerous!" insisted William. "We should at least warn the Headmaster about—"

" _No_." The ghosts all drifted backward as the woman's flat voice swept over them, her incredible power reinforcing the geas they had consented to in exchange for sanctuary inside the castle's walls. "Despite your feelings toward her, she is still a student at this school, and therefore you will not interfere in her activities. Should an issue arise, I will handle it  _personally_ , but I doubt it will become necessary."

Marcus gave the figure a short bow. "As you command, milady."

* * *

Jen quirked an eyebrow when she entered the Arithmancy classroom the following Friday. Umbridge was present, sitting placidly in a chair next to the front desk, while Vector was standing and sending the fat woman panicked looks. It was only the third time she had seen Umbridge in her role as the Curriculum Inspector, and both the Transfiguration and Ancient Runes reviews had taken place the previous week. She could not help but also notice that the younger professor's hands were twitching with nervous energy, and she shot Umbridge an angry, if brief, glare. Vector was one of her favorite teachers at Hogwarts; the woman was amusing, attractive, and made a habit of teaching her subject with real-world applicability in mind.

Despite the brevity of her expression, Umbridge must have caught it, for the squat witch gave her a curious glance before returning to the forms in her lap.

Once everyone was seated, Vector magicked the door closed and began her habitual pacing. "Our topic of discussion today is supposed to be a look at the similarities and differences between the summoning and banishing charms, but, er…" The young woman looked back at Umbridge again for a moment. "Um, but the essays many of you handed in last time lead me to believe that you are laboring under a misconception, one that could potentially make the problems you will see over rest of the year and on the OWL exam more complicated than they need to be." A wave of her wand caused an equation to appear on the board. "How many of you think this represents an actual spell?"

Looking it over, Jen was rather surprised at what she saw.  _It's… small, shorter than anything we've ever looked at before. What in the world is it supposed to be? Let's see… First off, it has a Laplace arrangement, which indicates either a transfiguration or a conjuration. That it has three tiers of manipulation rather than five indicates the former, as does the fact that all the tiers have delta as their primary function; if this were a conjuration, I'd expect to see xi, instead. What's really odd, though, is that there are no alpha or omega functions. A transfiguration without an initial or final state?_

Granger raised her hand, and Vector nodded for her to speak. "Clearly it's not. It looks like it could be from the middle of a transfiguration spell, but it's missing the elements that denote what the original material is, nor is there any definition for what you're changing it into. No one could possibly cast this in real life."

"A good explanation," the professor stated before pointing a finger at the brunette. "And also wrong."

Several of the students muttered among themselves in surprise, and Granger's bushy head fluffed up like an angry cat. Jen was likewise stumped, but her curiosity outweighed her confusion. What would Granger do now?

Ever since Rita revealed two weeks previously that the girl had blackmailed her to force her to stop writing disparaging articles about Danny Potter – or any of Granger's friends, really – Jen had kept a closer eye on the intelligent Lion. Normally she would have had trouble believing that someone so involved with Dumbledore's camp would stoop to intimidation to get what she wanted, but she also could not help but recall that when her fellow fifth-year had attended the Yule Ball the previous year, she had surprised everyone by appearing on the arm of Viktor Krum. Personally, Jen had even then expected the girl had used seduction to convince him to serve as her escort.

A course of action her own experience in his bed had proved to be an  _exceptionally_  good idea.

 _I really do wonder what her endgame is_ , Jen thought suspiciously.  _Why, if she is so willing to take_ _'_ _Dark_ _'_ _actions, does she consort with some of the most extreme Light Houses? Is it that her primary concern is Muggleborn rights, and they are the bloc most sympathetic to her cause? Considering how everyone says she runs ragged over Potter and Weasley, is she practicing for the future so she can wriggle her way into a Noble House and make herself the true power behind the throne? Did she just see an opportunity and took advantage of it for whatever benefit it might yield in the future?_

 _Any of those options would be laudable, but if I knew which one it was, I could plan for her future moves. She certainly has the_ _ **potential**_ _to be a powerful player despite her heritage, and if she were not so close to Potter, I_ _'_ _d seriously consider reaching out to her, even if she would require a little remedial education on the topic of proper social graces. As things stand, however, she is more likely to be a dangerous enemy than a useful ally, and as such deserves further watching_.

"I see you don't understand," Vector was saying as she returned her attention to the outside world. "The spells we have examined in this class so far are well understood and completely described, and because of this, several of you have come to the erroneous conclusion that  _all_  magic can be broken down into numbers and symbols. While that is the ultimate goal of arithmancers the world over, at this moment in time it is not the case." The professor shook her head. "As of the latest estimation, only ten percent of spells in use today have been totally analyzed, and those are all relatively simple. More complex spells are only minimally understood, and – partly because of the small number of researchers willing to work with dark and illegal magics – not a single ritual recorded from bygone eras has been defined to any appreciable degree.

"The message I want all of you to understand, therefore, is this: magic is still greatly dependent on will, intuition, and imagination. Coming up with new magic is not a simple matter of writing out the right equation; it takes a degree of creativity more akin to that of an artist or composer to craft an original spell. Without these three qualities in sufficient quantities, whatever spell you are attempting to make will inevitably fail, and the consequences of that are… often quite dire."

A quick check with her sonar revealed Luna's face falling at the unintended and unknowing reminder of her mother's demise.

 _Makes sense; that is exactly the problem I've been running into in my experiments with the Patronus Charm_ , Jen thought with no little disappointment.  _No one knows how it works, so the formula is incomplete. The chances of me working through it to get something useful have just dropped to nearly zero. Damn it._

After a pause where they all mulled over that warning, Terry Boot raised his hand and tentatively asked, "What about this equation?"

"Ah, yes. This equation is an example of such a higher-order spell, and therefore it is incomplete. In case you were wondering, it is the most complete mathematical description we have for free transfiguration."

"Free transfiguration?" she repeated, her interest aroused. "What is that? I don't believe I've ever heard of such a thing."

Vector gave her an understanding smile. "Neither had I before a couple of years ago; I had to ask Professor McGonagall for an explanation. According to her, it is a spell taught in Transfiguration Mastery programs that acts as a sort of general transfiguration, allowing someone to change anything into anything else without having to recall or even know the spell needed for that specific transformation, hence the lack of alpha and omega functions in the formula. The downside is that it requires the caster to have an in-depth understanding of both the object to be changed and the object she desires. It's an example on two different levels of what I meant about magic relying primarily on intuition rather than analysis."

 _Changing anything into anything else without using a specific motion or incantation?_ , the raven-haired girl repeated to herself in wonder.  _And with the beginning and ending states needing to be understood? That sounds exactly what_ _ **I**_ _do whenever I transfigure or conjure something! I thought I was doing something completely unique, but instead I'm just approaching the subject from a different direction!_

"I know it's a bit disheartening to hear this; I felt the same way when  _my_  teacher told me. At the level we are at right now, it shouldn't make much of a difference beyond the theoretical, but keeping the 'fuzziness' of magic in mind will be very important for those of you who continue on to my NEWT class." Vector clapped her hands. "Now that that's cleared up, let's get back to what we're supposed to be doing today. First up, the summoning charm. You'll find its equation on page 1215 in  _Numerology and Grammatica_ …"

The rest of the period would have passed rather unremarkably had it not been for Vector becoming flustered every time she looked over her shoulder to find Umbridge either watching her or jotting notes down on the clipboard. When the bell finally rang, she told the class as they packed up, "Assignment for Wednesday: finish your comparison, and then expand it to include the levitation, hover, or locomotor charm. Bonus points for anyone willing to attempt a general theory of motion charms!"

 _Strange_ _…_ _Umbridge interviewed both McGonagall and Babbling in class, but she has yet to ask Vector a single question._  Curious about the change in tactics, Jen waved her friends off once they had left the room and leaned against the wall next to the door, out of sight of the two women still inside.

"You certainly have an interesting way of teaching your class. Most of the other staff I watched either stood in one place or sat at their desks while they lectured, but I don't think you were still for longer than a few seconds at a time during the entire period."

Vector's face grew cold at the rotund witch's comment. "I-I've always done that. I feel like it keeps me from going off on tangents. It's not a… not a problem, is it?"

"No, not at all," Umbridge said with a dainty little giggle. "It was just an observation, nothing to be alarmed about. Now, my records say you were not a student at this school, correct?"

"Er, no. I attended Chléirigh School of Magic."

"That's the one in Cork?" The younger woman nodded. "Is your family Irish?"

"Welsh. I grew up in Holyhead, but while it was farther away than Anthony College, it was also cheaper."

Umbridge made a quick note of that, though how it mattered, Jen hadn't a clue. "Understandable. How long have you been teaching Arithmancy?"

"Four years here, and three at Chléirigh." She fidgeted for a moment, then burst out, "Whatever it was that you think is an issue, I know I can fix it—"

"Now, now, no need to panic. Just take a breath and calm down," the Inspector cut in with a laugh, though the sound rang false to Jen's ears. "What makes you think there's any issue at all?"

"After what happened with Sibyl, and Severus said you weren't happy with him, either…" Tears began streaming down Vector's cheeks. "I'm the youngest member of the faculty, and I know I don't have the experience everyone else does, but please,  _please_ don't take my job away from me!"

Umbridge held up her hands in a reassuring gesture. "I'm not here to take jobs away from anyone. All I'm doing is making sure the classes are being taught to an acceptable level."

"And mine…?"

"I will be releasing all my findings and recommendations at one time." After a moment, Umbridge stepped closer and whispered, "But just between us, I wouldn't worry too much if I were you."

Vector's face brightened considerably at that news. "Oh, thank you so much, Professor! I can't tell you how much this means to me!"

"Just keep it to yourself for now. And there's no need to call me  _'_ _Professor_ _'_. We're colleagues; Dolores is just fine." The hefty witch walked out of the room and raised an eyebrow when she spotted Jen standing there. Closing the door behind her, she asked in a carefully neutral tone, "Is there a reason why you are here instead of on your way to your next class?"

"I have this period off, so it's not like I have somewhere better to be at the moment," was her nonchalant answer. At the fat witch's knowing gaze, she jerked her head toward the wall. "She's one of the teachers I like best here, and when you didn't ask her any questions during the class itself, I hoped it didn't mean bad news."

"It isn't polite to eavesdrop," Umbridge pointed out.

"Eavesdrop? Not at all. The door was wide open; anyone walking past could have overheard what you two were saying without a conscious effort."

The corners of Umbridge's mouth twitched in an suppressed smile. "Fair enough. However, I will be quite displeased if I catch you skulking around private discussions, behind closed doors or otherwise, in the future. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal. If you'll excuse me," she said, hoisting her satchel higher on her shoulder.

"Very well. Oh, and Miss Black?" Jen turned around to look back at Umbridge. "Have five points to Ravenclaw for loyalty to your school."

"Thank you."  _Now what are you going to want in return?_

* * *

**This entire chapter came out of practically nowhere, and so I'm a little stuck about just what favors Jen should ask the ghosts for. Suggestions would be very welcome. Also, does anyone want to see Jen's conversation with the Grey Lady? I don't want to spend time coming up with background information if no one cares, but if you** _**are** _ **interested, I wouldn't want to leave it out.**

**It's amazing the kinds of things you learn when writing, especially for a work of fiction. William of Ockham, whom I've cast here as the Fat Friar, was a real person, an English friar in the early fourteenth century who was excommunicated for heresy and apostasy when he wrote an essay criticizing the Church for its policy of owning property and accumulating money, a view that got him in hot water with Pope John XXII. John XXII was also, interestingly enough, the pope who declared that charges of witchcraft were to be investigated by the Inquisition, paving the way for the systematic witch hunts of the fourteenth through eighteenth centuries. The more you know…**

**Silently Watches out.**


	19. Equal Opportunity Critic

**dragonblade3200, gnurd:**  Yes, I knew about William of Ockham being the "developer" of Occam's Razor, but considering Jen's "bad Catholic" comment, I felt his excommunication and from there Pope John XXII's connection to the witch hunts were more relevant and more interesting, respectively.

 **Disclaimer:**  Did the Minister nominate for the position of High Inquisitor someone who could at least make a case for being qualified to inspect and review the Hogwarts staff? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 19  
** **Equal-Opportunity Critic**

The door to the staff lounge closed, and Filius looked at Albus expectantly. The professors of Hogwarts had meetings at the end of every September, March, and June to go over important topics, but  _this_  meeting was already unusual and would likely only get stranger.

Hard as it was to believe, Umbridge was only  _part_  of the reason for that.

"We have a lot to go over today," the white-haired wizard began, looking over the rolls of parchment in front of him. "Does anyone have pressing business to bring up before we get started?"

Aurora cleared her throat and leaned forward. "I don't know that it's  _pressing_ , as such, but I'd dearly like to know what had the five of you running around like pixies running from a kneazle for the past week."

"I suppose we can start with that. Unless anyone else has something they wish discuss first?" The room was silent, and he sighed. "Very well. The short answer is as simple as it is unbelievable. Cuthbert seems to have… well, disappeared."

"How does someone lose a ghost?" asked Septima, a little humor noticeable in her otherwise bland question.

"He's not  _lost;_  we just misplaced him," the quarter-goblin replied, gaining a few scattered chuckles as well as glares from both Albus and Minerva. "I'll repeat what I said when we first started looking for him: he was no longer a teacher, nor was he a house ghost. If he wished to leave, that was entirely his prerogative. Yes, I would have preferred that he let us know, at the very least so we could wish him well on whatever new venture he has embarked on, but it's a minor thing overall."

"It was that suddenness that makes this so strange," Albus returned sternly. "Tell me, did anyone at this table ever see Cuthbert as being  _spontaneous_?" No one answered, and he continued, "Neither did I. Since he would not do something like this of his own free will, we can only conclude that, strange as it may sound, something happened to him."

That no one immediately protested the otherwise ludicrous nature of that claim proved just how much of an effect discovering the petrified form of Sir Nicholas in 1992 had had on the staff. Not even ghosts were totally immune to harm, difficult as that had been to accept at the time.

"What have you been doing to discover what such a  _'_ _something_ _'_  might be?" prompted Bathsheba, looking pointedly at the headmaster and heads of house.

The elderly wizard sighed. "Seeing as how Cuthbert did not relay his plans to any of us among the living, we had no other recourse but to turn to the dead. We spoke to all the ghosts in the castle, and the house ghosts multiple times, in fact."

"And?"

"…And we found nothing. None of them know anything."

"I maintain that the Fat Friar knows  _something_ ," Pomona cut in. "He definitely wasn't acting like himself when I talked to him one-on-one. He was… almost cagey."

"The Friar, cagey? I'm afraid I can't see it," denied the dark-skinned Astronomy professor, also a former Hufflepuff.

Pomona shot her a sharp, mirthless smile. "Then  _you_ can ask him about it and decide for yourself."

" _Ladies_ ," Albus interrupted, and the two witches backed down before the claws could come out. "As I was not present for that particular discussion, I cannot say that you are incorrect, but he did not act abnormally either time I spoke with him."

Charity Burbage, the Muggle Studies professor, frowned and leaned in. "So, and correct me if I'm wrong, what you're saying is that he's been gone for a week and still nobody knows why he left or where he went?"

"Essentially," Severus grumbled, scowl firmly planted on his visage. Filius had to agree with the expression; the entire exercise had been a waste of time, especially since he maintained then and now that it was none of their business.

If his and Cuthbert's positions had been reversed,  _he_ most certainly would not stick around simply for the nostalgia.

"Hem, hem," Umbridge said, gaining their attention.  _Someone really needs to tell her how annoying that is_ , was the Charms professor's uncomplimentary thought. "If I might clarify something that's bothering me about this situation, Professor Dumbledore?" He nodded, and she continued, "You said that Professor Binns disappeared without a trace, yes? And that you spoke with the other ghosts after the fact?"

"Yes, on both counts," Albus answered slowly. Suspiciously, in fact, was Filius's estimation.

"Did you and he have routine meetings, then?" she pressed.

"No."

"Did anyone else see him regularly?"

"Again, no. I fail to see how any of this is relevant."

"Oh, I thought it was quite obvious," she answered in a sugary-sweet little-girl voice. "I'm just wondering how it was that you found out that he was in the missing in the first place."

That… was a very good question. Filius turned to look at the white-haired wizard. "I'd like an explanation for that, as well, Albus. Now that I think about it, it does seem quite strange."

The headmaster hesitated only for an instant, but after nearly thirty years of working together, that was enough for Filius to know three things. One, what the man was about to say would undoubtedly sound credible. Two, it would be a complete lie, made up on the spot.

And three, he was  _not_  going to like the real answer.

"The portraits were gossiping on Monday about how they had not seen him for a while. They seemed rather distraught, so I went to look for him, and when I could not locate him, I called in the heads of house," was Albus's excuse.

"How odd." Umbridge paused to let the tension build for a moment, then she continued, "You see, I had originally planned to use Professor Binns's classroom and office for my own classes and only moved when he refused to give them up. There were no portraits in either room, and when  _I_  was a student, he slipped through the wall between them when class began and ended; they  _are_ , after all, right next to each other. I don't recall him going anywhere else, either. Why, then, would the portraits find it strange that they hadn't seen him?" She grinned like a cat that got the cream. "Unless I'm very much mistaken?"

"No, you are not." And could Severus look any more like it physically pained him to agree with her? "Albus?"

Said wizard sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose over his half-moon spectacles. "The wards alerted me when he could no longer be found."

 _Nope, I don't like this at all_. "You're saying that you can track any of us… anywhere we go… at any time?" Filius asked in a cold tone.

"It's not nearly so comprehensive," Albus denied quickly. "I only feel a tingle when someone enters or leaves the grounds, and for the staff, I know whether or not you are present. That's  _all_. Cuthbert wasn't here, but he didn't cross the wardline, either, so I knew something unusual was going on."

Everyone in the room stared at him silently, their collective faith shaken. Albus's reputation would almost certainly recover from this epiphany, he knew – Merlin knew the man had talked himself out of worse jams before! – but Filius doubted anyone would forget it. He certainly wouldn't.

"We will continue our investigation into Cuthbert's disappearance should new information turn up," Albus said, shaking them from their shocked introspection. "Moving on, we need to discuss the details of your class, James."

"We do? I thought we already did that," said professor protested in confusion.

Filius immediately explained, "I have had more than a few complaints about the way you are 'teaching' your class from my Ravens, and I have to say that I agree with their concerns. Tactics is a necessary skill for anyone who plans to engage in combat on a regular basis, I fully agree, but for the vast majority of the students here, that is simply not the case. They don't  _want_  to be Aurors or Hitwizards or duelists. Their primary concern is scoring well on their exams, particularly the fourth- and fifth-years,  _all_  of whom are required to take the Defense OWL regardless of its applicability to their future careers." He shook his head. "It would have made far more sense for you to have the strategy taught in your evening sessions and cover the spells during the class period."

"But that's the whole point!" James exclaimed, surprising them. "It's  _that_  attitude that causes so many problems. Yes, knowing the spells is important, but so is knowing how to  _use_  them! It is an essential skill everyone needs to know, but if I had done what you're suggesting, almost no one would have attended because the timing was 'inconvenient'. Besides, meeting after classes lends the training sessions a more relaxed air that goes along with their one-on-one nature, which would have been absent if I was doing it during the school day."

"While I must compliment you on how you implemented your plan, I have to disagree with your assumptions." The rest of the staff turned to Umbridge, and James also shot her a nasty glare. "Let us not fool ourselves; while  _planning_  is a crucial life skill, what you are teaching them has little use outside a real battle. Rather than implying to the children that fighting is an appropriate course of action, you should make sure they know that the best thing they can possibly do in such a situation is contact the DMLE and let the people whose job it is to protect the public handle it."

"And what happens when they're caught up in an attack and  _can't_  call the Aurors?!" the bespectacled wizard demanded.

" _When_  they're caught in an attack?" repeated Umbridge slowly, neatly dodging the question. "It is disturbing that you are so  _sure_  that something bad will happen to this country. Why is that?"

James grimaced at that, and in his peripheral vision Filius could make out Albus, Minerva, and Severus making similar, if better hidden, expressions.  _Ah, their little Order. I had forgotten that James was also a member, though it certainly explains why Albus would want him on staff. And since Fudge was present for Miss Black's revelation last year, it is only to be expected that his right-hand woman would be fully informed._

 _That also answers the question of why the Ministry suddenly decided to get involved in the workings of the school and sent her here in the first place._  He mentally sighed.  _This whole situation is turning into a pissing contest of epic proportions_.

The Defense professor cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I don't  _know_  that there will be anything, but it is a safe bet. This country has always had problems, Dark Lords showing up one after another, and considering the Death Eaters' return the summer before last…"

"And yet they did nothing afterward," countered Umbridge. "It was an isolated incident, almost certainly brought on by too much firewhiskey. Deplorable, to be sure, but ultimately meaningless. As for your alleged string of Dark Lords, that only began in the mid-nineteenth century, and they are anything but constant. If we ignore Grindelwald, who was honestly a problem for the Continent despite how critical Headmaster Dumbledore"—she nodded at the elder wizard—"was to his demise, the English Dark Lord immediately prior to You-Know-Who was Feynman in the nineteen-teens and early twenties. Fifty years is hardly  _'one after another'_."

"But there is no way to know that we  _won't_  soon be facing another threat in the near future," Minerva argued while crossing her arms. Filius closed his eyes and shook his head as the battle lines started drawing themselves.

"True, but nothing is  _ever_  certain. Constantly looking for the next threat is a mindset that will do little but trap people in baseless paranoia. Our world has enough problems already without everyone jumping at shadows."

"As interesting as this philosophical debate may be, this is neither the time nor the place for it," he interrupted before anyone could fire yet another volley and inflame the conflict any more. Screaming matches in the staff room were never fun. "I'd like to finish this meeting sooner rather than later; I still have several other things to do today."

"Yes, indeed. Thank you, Filius." Albus looked around the room. "Are there any other issues we absolutely must discuss at the moment?"

"Er, I know it's not of  _utmost_  importance," Aurora tentatively began, glancing at Umbridge, "but since we're all here, I was wondering if we had any news on the matter of our reviews?"

Bathsheba nodded. "That's right, you've finished with your inspections now, haven't you?"

"Almost," the wide witch admitted. "The only subject I have left is Care of Magical Creatures. I spoke with some of the students and Miss Grubbly-Plank, so I have a general idea of what the course is like, but I can't write a complete review without meeting the primary professor."

"As I explained at the beginning of the year, Rubeus is currently out of the country on personal business."

Ignoring Albus's excuse, she pressed on, "And you have  _no_  way to keep in contact with him? You  _do_ realize that without an inspection to prove whether he can properly teach his class, the DME may take his absence as a violation of Educational Decree Number 22 and terminate his employment, don't you?"

"Are you threatening him?" he asked darkly.

"Not at all. I'm just making sure you realize how important it is for me to speak with him," she answered in her sweet tone, though it rang patently false. Much to Filius's surprise, however, Aurora, Septima, and even Charity did not appear to have caught the lie.

 _How strange; Charity is normally sharper than that. What has she done to get in their good graces?_  Once again, he thought that the symbol of Slytherin house should have been a spider considering the webs they weaved.

"But even if you can't finish his, there's no reason the rest of us can't get ours, is there?" wondered Pomona, interrupting Albus and Umbridge's glaring match.

"I suppose not," the Ministry employee allowed. "I will speak with the DME and request their permission to release the final reports. I can't promise that you'll have them tomorrow, but almost certainly they'll be here by Monday."

"Very well." Albus shuffled through the notes in front of him. "Now, let's begin with our newest batch of first-years…"

* * *

Jen dashed tears from her eyes and turned her attention from her laughing friends – the whole way down from the History classroom, Luna had been entertaining them with a story involving her father, a surly vampire, Muggle gummy candies, and a hotel bathroom that would never be clean again – as the door to the Potions laboratory opened to allow the combined Gryffindor and Slytherin class to pour out. Her nod to Tracey had to be aborted, however, and the rest of the Ravens and Badgers fell silent as the, for lack of a better word,  _shell-shocked_  fifth-years passed them. Actual tear tracks were adorning Brown and the less intelligent Patil's faces, and even the Snakes looked like they had suffered.

The Ravenclaws glanced at each other, and a silent message passed among them.  _This isn_ _'_ _t going to be good_.

After the last few students hustled away from the room as a better-than-normal pace, they hesitantly crept inside themselves. Snape's sinister scowl instantly focused on them, and Luna whimpered softly and scurried closer to Jen's back. "Go to your seats. There will be no  _nonsense_  today."

Once they were all seated, he stabbed his wand at the blackboard, upon which an unsteady scrawl appeared. Jen's eyes widened as she read the recipe for the potion they were meant to work on; it was easily more difficult than anything she had ever prepared, and from the shocked expression she could feel on everyone else's face, she was not alone in that assessment. "Well, what are you waiting for?" he snapped, startling several of them. "Get to work!"

The following ninety minutes were… not fun. The sallow professor slipped among them, and his vitriol was surprising in its intensity; from the tales she had heard from Kenneth and Tracey, it was on par with how he commonly treated his Gryffindor students. When she relayed that comparison to Luna and Justin, with whom she was sharing a table, they shuddered as they realized how hard he must have been on his favorite victims the previous period.

Somehow hearing their whispers from across the room, he stomped to their table and leaned over. "I know that some of you are so incompetent that I wonder how you can manage to  _breathe_ ," he hissed silkily, "but which part of  _'_ _be silent_ _'_  are you having trouble comprehending?"

"We were just discussing the next step in the procedure," Jen interjected in a calm voice. Normally the wizard would allow them a little leeway if he knew that they were staying on task; she could only hope that that trend would continue, though she had her doubts considering his current mood.

Her more pessimistic thoughts were proved correct. "I don't care if you were discussing a plan to achieve world peace. Talk again, and I will throw all three of you out and give you zeroes for the day. McMillan, chop those dandelion roots finer, or I'll make you drink every drop of the swill you're brewing!" he shouted, finally turning away from them.

It was no surprise to her when everyone – even Susan, who was one of the best brewers in the class – handed in concoctions far below the quality they were used to producing. Snape did not spare them then, either, making nasty comments each time a phial was handed to him; the closest she heard to praise was his opinion on Oliver River's potion, a perfunctory  _'_ _Perhaps this wouldn_ _'_ _t_ _ **immediately**_ _kill someone_ _'_  before the tiny glass bottle was tossed into the box holding the rest.

"Even a  _drunk Muggle_  would know this was a waste of ingredients," he said, sneering at her own offering. He plucked it out of her hands and stashed it with the others, and the motion he made as he wrote in his ledger looked suspiciously like that for a T.

It was not the only one; in fact, by the end of the period no one had achieved a passing mark.

" _Pathetic_ ," he snarled when the bell calling them to lunch interrupted his feral pacing. "If this is all you're capable of, it would be outright  _criminal_  to allow you to make a living brewing. Every single one of you would be better served never darkening my doorstep again and focusing on something you might be halfway competent at. Maybe hawking talismans door-to-door on Knockturn if you're lucky. Get out, all of you!"

 _What_ _ **is**_ _his problem?_ , she wondered for the fourth or fifth time since entering the room. Waiting for everyone else to depart – not hard, considering no one was looking anywhere but at the floor as they headed to the exit – she flicked her finger discreetly.

The resounding  _slam_  of the closed door caused him to whip his wand out of his pocket, the tip unerringly aimed at her and an incantation ready on his lips. After a moment that had her preparing a speedy conjuration, the cool glow of his unvoiced dark curse faded to nothing. "Black, get out. I will not repeat myself again."

"I should hope not; that would just waste even more of our time." He glared at her audacity, and she had to force down the voice in her head screaming about how stupid an idea this was. Flitwick had been right when he said that she avoided head-on confrontation as much as possible, and such a strategy was rarely wrong, but  _this_  situation needed to be handled quickly before it could cause any more trouble. Unfortunately, that meant tangling with a viper in its den.

Even if it made her feel like she would be better suited wearing a robe trimmed in scarlet.

"If you do not leave right now, I  _will_  fail you for the year. I doubt that will make you look good to the rest of your housemates," he warned her in a dark voice.

She shot him a mild smile and seated herself on the edge of a nearby table. "Sure, you could do that. Of course, you'd then have to explain your decision to Flitwick, not to mention that it would undoubtedly cause Sirius and, more importantly, Aunt Cissy to treat you more than a little coldly in the Order meetings for the foreseeable future." He blinked in surprise at that angle of attack. " _Or_  you could tell me what's put you in such a snit and not have to deal with several of your undoubtedly few supporters being mad at you."

"Are you threatening me?" demanded the enraged wizard.

"Threatening you?" she repeated in a somewhat confused tone. "With what? We both know you don't give a damn about  _my_  opinions concerning you."

He frowned at the blunt answer, and his response was, if not gentle, at least less harsh. "Why would you even want to know?"

She held up her hands as if they were a set of scales. "Partly I'm curious, partly you being in a sulk affects my marks in this class." Shrugging, she dropped her arms. "And partly the fact that despite my initial reservations and against all common sense, I  _do_  like you. That's what I get for spending so much time with my aunt growing up, I guess."

His glare softening at the half-truth concerning her and Cissy – after all, she  _had_  spent a good amount of time with the woman over the years, though not how he was undoubtedly thinking – he finally looked away. "That's your reason for asking me, but why should I tell you about anything, let alone this?  _'Confession is good for the soul'_?" was his muttered dismissal.

A smirk appeared on her face; she had him now, even if he was still fighting the inevitable. "Actually, I was going more for  _'If you can't trust the person who's bound by_ _ **blood magic**_ _to safeguard your secrets, who can you trust?'_."

He gave her a quick glance before turning around and making his way to his desk. From the way he had shifted uncomfortably and the surprise just barely leaking through his mental shields, he had forgotten that little encounter they had had the previous year.  _Though how he could forget considering the stink he made about it at the time, I have no idea_. He said nothing once he was seated, and for a moment she seriously considered peeking inside his head to figure out what he was thinking about despite the defenses around his mind. Occlumency shields could keep out her casual attempts to poke around, but additional power would let her rip right through them, especially with them weakened as they were by his emotions; the only reason she did not do so more often was that such an action was anything but subtle.

Instead, she decided to try putting the pieces together without any stolen hints. She thought aloud, "You weren't acting like this this past weekend; it's a recent development. Actually, you were much calmer this morning up until you received a letter." A twitch, the motion minuscule, told her she was on the right track. "All of the staff got one, though at different times, and even more telling, none of you seemed surprised. No one opened them because you already knew what they were.

"I take it back;  _not_  all of you received one," she retracted quickly. "Umbridge didn't. Her last inspection was with Vector on Friday, and everyone gets letters right after. Those were your results, weren't they?" Snape glared sulkily at her. "And from your attitude, it wasn't to your liking."

"Do you expect praise for playing up your supposed Ravenclaw wit?" he said with a sneer.

 _Got him_. "That's not the same as telling me I'm wrong. Quite the opposite, in fact."

Another moment passed in silence before he harrumphed. "Fine, yes. Those were my results."

" _And_?" she drawled.

He snarled explosively, the sound more appropriate to an angry animal, before pulling the letter from his robe's inner pocket and throwing it onto the desk. "Bloody woman put me on  _probation_. She said I'm  _'_ _belligerent, impatient, and lacking in professional decorum_ _'_ , all because I yelled at a couple of idiotic second-years when they nearly blew themselves and everyone else up. Let me meet her alone in a dark alley some night, and I'll show her  _decorum_ ," he muttered.

"Was that a surprise?" she asked airily, earning herself another growl. "I mean, you  _did_  tell us at the beginning of the year that you aren't the  _nicest_  of teachers, and everyone gripes about your teaching style. This really shouldn't be news to you."

"The complaints of whining children are completely different from a review by the DME. One is irrelevant while the other poses the risk of  _losing my job_."

 _And you never thought that_ _ **that**_ _attitude might be the reason you were put on probation in the first place?_ "How long do you have to clean up your act?"

"The end of term. Why?" he demanded suspiciously.

"Well, that's less time than you need," she said in an only half-joking manner. Thinking for a moment, she offered, "By the time everyone's older, they're less sensitive to your insults, barring extreme circumstances like today. It's primarily the younger years that will have the most dramatic reactions, which is likely part of the reason you're in trouble." He nodded in wary agreement. "Have you thought about getting some of your older students to help teach those classes? More eyes looking out for danger means you'd be able to fix mistakes before they start posing a real danger to anyone, not to mention they could... temper your excesses."

Rather than answer immediately, he looked askance at her. "And I suppose this is your way of angling for said position, provided I take such a suggestion?"

She laughed. "Oh, absolutely not. I have enough on my plate as it is. I was actually thinking you should pick a couple of your better-skilled seventh-years; they have fewer subjects to worry about, and I've always heard that teaching is one of the best ways of reinforcing what you already know."

"I wish it were that simple," he said with a sigh. At her inquiring hum, he reluctantly admitted, "I tried that already, during my second year as a professor. Dumbledore scrapped the idea not halfway through the term and said I had to teach the classes myself if I wanted to get paid."

"I meant you should enlist help, not foist the whole job off onto someone else," she chided.

"I  _didn't_."

"Oh." She sucked on her bottom lip for a moment before asking incredulously, "He was  _really_  that against you having an assistant?"

He shrugged his shoulders, the youthful gesture at odds with his normal demeanor. "He said he hired  _me_ to teach, not a seventh-year, and that he was sure the student would be much cheaper to employ if I wanted to continue the argument. Then he followed that with some twaddle about  _'overcoming your personal challenges'_  or something; I had stopped listening by that point."

 _That sounds like the old goat, all right_. Realizing that she might never get the Potions professor in this talkative a mood again, she asked a question that had been bothering her for some time. "Why  _are_  you teaching, anyway? You sound like you hate it. Dealing with a bunch of dunderheads, watching ingredients be wasted, cleaning up spills of who knows what—"

"Yes, yes, you've made your point," he snapped. "It certainly wasn't my  _first_  choice of career. Unfortunately, I didn't have many to pick from. During the War, I switched my allegiance from the Death Eaters to the Order and spilled all the secrets I knew to Dumbledore, and there were quite a few of those since I was part of the Inner Circle. When the Dark Lord fell, he vouched for my innocence in front of the court; my name was subsequently cleared, and he offered me a position here. My old comrades, even the ones who bribed their way out of Azkaban, were extremely unhappy with me because of how close I appeared to be with their greatest enemy, so the castle was safer than any other option I had at the time."

He shook his head in disappointment. "Of course, had I known then what I know now, I would have made my decision more carefully. Spending the years under Dumbledore's thumb is a large part of why the Dark Lord had been keeping such a close eye on me since his return. It makes my duties as the Order's spy much more difficult."

"Which you didn't want to take up in the first place," she added helpfully.

A strangled sound came from his throat, and he pinned her with a disbelieving stare. " _How_ …?"

"Oh, please. I don't need to read your mind to know you hate that job, too."

"One does not just  _'_ _read the mind_ _'_ , girl; Legilimency is a delicate art…" He trailed off when she rolled her eyes, and after a moment he continued, "Regardless, yes, obviously I despise putting myself in danger. I am not a Gryffindor who takes pleasure from sticking my hand into the wolf's mouth."

She cocked her head. "So why do you do it at all? Surely you've repaid your debt to Dumbledore by now."

"It's because—" He snapped his mouth closed before he could say anything else, which only made her more curious. "Suffice it to say that I have my own reasons for doing so, reasons I have no desire to reveal to you, blood oath or no."

 _Come_ _ **on**_ _; I'm so close!_  Her frustration mounting, she cajoled, "Are you  _sure_  that's the best decision? You're more relaxed now that you told me about your review, so how do you know this wouldn't help, too?"

"True, but one is not like the other. The reasons I play my part in this war are an old wound, one you have no need to poke and prod." He glanced at the clock on the wall. "You had better leave now if you want there to be any food left."

"Very well," she reluctantly accepted, hearing the dismissal for what it was. There was little chance she could wheedle the truth out of him at this point, and trying would only damage the strengthened rapport they now had. On the other hand… "Since I've helped you out, is there any chance I could get today's mark raised to an A, maybe even an E?"

"Don't push your luck."

* * *

_**Umbridge** _ **… Stop taking over the scene! And quit making me respect you, even if it** _**is** _ **solely as a ruthless manipulator.**

**The 'Muggle gummy candies' Luna was referring to are specifically Haribo Sugar-Free Gummy Bears. If you want a laugh, go to Amazon and read the reviews; just don't do it during a guest lecture and literally choke because you're trying your best not to cackle uproariously. That wasn't fun.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	20. Best Friends

**Well, this was unexpected. Two scenes that I was sure would only be about 1,500 words together** _**at most** _ **, but by the time I was finished, they had taken over the entire chapter.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did the Hogwarts staff, particularly Dumbledore whom we know was a teacher at the time, ask the ghosts about information regarding the Chamber of Secrets after the basilisk had been set free? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 20  
** **Best Friends Know Where the Bodies Are Buried**

"Hey, Jen? Can I talk to you for a second?"

The aforementioned girl cocked her head, curiosity running rampant through her mind. That Tracey would wish to have a private discussion was nothing new; the Slytherin was, as one would expect from members of that house, quite serious about her secrets staying secret. Nor was the timing of such a request unusual, and her friends among the other Ravens had long become accustomed to the pair of them spending anywhere from a few minutes to half an hour in seclusion after one of their shared fifth-period classes.

No, what was so odd was the hesitant, almost embarrassed cast to Tracey's features.

Morag rolled her eyes as she headed down the hall leading from Babbling's classroom to the Great Hall for dinner, and Luna gave the redheaded girl a concerned glance before joining their departing classmates. Jen indicated for her best friend to precede her, an invitation Tracey quickly accepted as she led them in the opposite direction.

Once safely ensconced in one of the many long-neglected classrooms that made up the castle, Jen waited for the other girl to explain what was eating away at her. Seconds turned into a minute, and she finally sighed. "Are you eventually going to tell me what's the matter with you, or do I have to read your mind to find out?"

"Wait, you can  _read minds_  now?!" was Tracey's incredulous response, to which she merely shrugged. That was one skill she would never actually  _admit_  to possessing, for obvious reasons, but it was still rather amusing to toss the other girl crumbs occasionally and watch her agonize over them as she wrestled with whether those hints were truth or lies. Jen was sure the younger heiress would come to the right conclusion sooner rather than later – she had been less than subtle this time, and intentionally so – but despite having a  _'_ _sneaky snake_ _'_  as a best friend, she was not worried about that information finding its way into the wrong ears.

Not only did Tracey know she was capable of  _destroying_  the other girl should their relationship be betrayed, she realized that staying on Jen's good side would only help her once they were out of school and working in the real world. Such carrots and sticks were the foundation of any healthy Slytherin friendship.

Shaking her head as though to rid herself of the less-than-comforting thoughts, Tracey said, "I wanted to… well, to talk to you about Vesta."

"Oh?"  _That_  was unexpected. While the other girl had spoken at length before about the antics of the playful calico kitten Jen had given her on her birthday, having that be the topic of a private conversation was most unusual. "I'm afraid I don't follow."

"It's̵…" Tracey trailed off for a moment, as if she were unsure about whether she wanted to continue this line of discussion. "Never mind, forget it."

"No, now I'm curious. She isn't sick, is she?" A snap of her fingers had two chairs appear from thin air, and Jen sat in one while waving her hand in invitation at the other.

With a sigh, the chestnut-haired girl plopped into the seat. "No, she's not sick. Not yet, at least. The problem is my grandfather."

Jen growled deep in her throat as she staved off her irritation. From what little Tracey had mentioned about her grandfather, the older man had better hope they never met in a dark alley somewhere. Some of the things he had done to the girl were just barely short of neglect or emotional abuse, and while that did not bother her when it affected a nameless stranger, the same happening to one of her friends was a  _much_ different story.

"Yeah, you're not going to be any happier when I'm done," Tracey said with a faint, mirthless smile. "You remember how I told you he didn't want me to have a pet? The whole reason you went behind his back and got me one in such a way he couldn't refuse? Well, according to Mum he's made  _insinuations_  to one of my uncles that something bad will happen to her over the winter hols. I'm going to stay here this year, obviously, but that by itself won't change anything. I'll still be home next summer—"

"Why would he do something like that at all?" she interrupted. She could somewhat understand Wallace Davis not wanting his granddaughter to have a pet; the Davises were traditionally blood purists, and Tracey was a Halfblood. Even with her being Wallace's own flesh and blood, from the sound of it he did not consider her to be a 'real' decedent of his, and prohibiting her from buying a pet was his way of demonstrating that dislike. Actively plotting to  _kill_  the pet she already had, on the other hand, was simply pointless cruelty.

"He hates me." Upon her inquiring glance at the bland tone that statement had been delivered in, Tracey shrugged helplessly. "It's bad enough that one of his grandchildren is a  _'_ _filthy_ _Halfblood_ _'_ , but for me to be his  _heir_  as well? If he was sure he could get rid of me without becoming a suspect in the process, especially with how well-known his opinions on blood purity are, I think he'd try it. The truth is…"

The Slytherin trailed off uncertainly, and Jen cocked her head. The Black heiress did not speak, however; that ran the risk of being counterproductive and scaring her fellow heiress off entirely. After another long moment, Tracey quietly asked, "How much can I trust you?"

Had it been Luna or Padma – or any of her other friends, really – asking, she would have given a quick answer, but this time she actually thought about it for a minute. Part of the reason was showmanship; that was not the kind of question one would normally hear any Slytherin voice, and giving the answer anything less than the contemplation it was due would convince someone of that house that she was insincere. The other part of it, however, was that she felt Tracey deserved a completely honest response. Her analysis complete, she finally replied, "You would be foolish to trust me completely with trivial secrets, especially if I find them funny, but on more significant matters… Recall that you are my first and greatest ally, and that we have tied our political fates together since our introduction. It would be remiss in the extreme for me to betray you without cause."

That admission appeared to give some small amount of comfort to the other girl, for she continued where she had left off. "Until this past summer, my grandfather never gave much consideration to what could happen with how he treats me, but then my fifteenth birthday rolled around, and there was my Naming and my Introduction and… Well, it suddenly struck him that he has done a magnificent job of driving a wedge between him and his heir. It's especially important because he's probably not long for this world." She gave Jen an awkward smile, the expression someone would use when she was happy but knew objectively that she should not be. "He's only seventy-two, but what little Black blood he has in him from generations back was enough for him to contract the Curse."

The resident Black nodded in comprehension. The so-called  _'_ _Black Curse_ _'_  was the name given by society to the unexplainable tendency of members of her House to die well before their times. Under ordinary circumstances, a wizard of seventy-two could easily expect another sixty years of life, but Blacks with the Curse would be  _lucky_  to live that long. The Curse had been noticed almost a millennium previously, but still no one knew exactly what caused their recurrent strings of early deaths.

Personally, Jen thought it was nothing more mysterious than simple bad luck.

"If I was just another member of the family, he could and would quite happily disown me and consider the matter solved, but I'm not. I'm the heir, and so the law says he  _can_ _'_ _t_  do anything like that. Unless I die first, I'm the next Head of House Davis, and that thought rightly terrifies him. There's little he can do to stop me from doing whatever I want, and he knows it.

"He made me an interesting offer before I left for Platform 9¾," the girl continued. "He showed me a key to a Gringotts vault and said he had placed three  _thousand_  galleons inside it. It was mine, he promised, on just one condition: I had to abdicate my position as the House's heir so he could pass it on to the eldest of my cousins. The offer is only good until I turn seventeen, and he implied, though he never said explicitly, that unless I take him up on it, he'll make my life a living hell."

"Do you think the deal was made in good faith?" Jen asked, her curiosity piqued.

Tracey snorted. "Grandfather wouldn't know  _'_ _good faith_ _'_  if it came up and bit him in the bollocks. No, I know that if I  _was_  stupid enough to take him up on it, I'd find that there was a single knut in that vault, and that's if I'm lucky. More likely he'd saddle me with the House's debt or something. Still, between his threat and Mum's warning, I'm afraid he might see hurting Vesta as a suitable means of  _persuasion_. That got me thinking. On my birthday, you said you knew a spell that could create a familiar bond immediately rather than having to wait a decade or more for one to form on its own. Familiars are supposed to be in tune with their witches, and if Loki's any indication, she'd get a lot smarter, too, maybe enough for me to leave her somewhere over the summer where she'd be safe. So, if that deal is still on the table, I'd like to accept it," she finished quietly.

 _Ah, I had forgotten about that offer. Mostly because I never thought she'd agree to it. Having made it, however, it would be poor form to retract it, especially in these circumstances._ Jen smiled weakly in her mind.  _Besides, it isn't as if I'm_ _ **un**_ _willing to fulfill that promise_.

"It is indeed still available," she began slowly, "but if you're serious about going through with it, there is some additional information you need to know, and I don't want an answer until I have told you all of it." Tracey nodded in understanding. "First off, there is no spell that will do what you want."

"But you said—"

"I know what I said, as well as what I  _didn't_  say. I never said I could just wave my hand around and cast a  _spell_. Circumventing magical processes like this is hard enough, but making them  _permanent_ … That's a whole other problem added on top of it. No spell in the world could hope to do all that." Tracey's face fell. "A  _ritual_ , on the other hand…"

"Ritual?" the other girl repeated breathlessly, eyes wide as she stared into Jen's own. "Jen, that's serious dark magic. Send you to  _Azkaban_  serious."

"Surprisingly, I was not unaware of this," came her sharp reply, though the faint smirk on her lips bore lie to the tone. "Do you think that I would make such an offer to just  _anyone_? Give me a little credit. Besides, I would simply deny we had that or this conversation should anyone else ever make an issue of it.

"Now, as for the details." She made herself more comfortable in her chair while Tracey still stared at her slack-jawed. "I will tell you this now so you will not complain when the deed is done: the changes I can effect in Vesta are quite different to what was done to Loki. He was  _extensively_  modified after the ritual we are talking about was finished, and quite frankly, I don't know how she did what she did." That was a blatant lie; she knew  _exactly_  what Elsie had done to him, but those kind of alterations were black magic. The ritual she was proposing now was merely dark. "That said, I  _can_  give Vesta a few extras while I'm working, enhancing her healing to prevent her succumbing to poisoned foods and giving her a slight empathic connection to you so she will know when you need something soft to cuddle, for instance. Minor stuff like that."

"What about the  _'she'_  you mentioned? Could we go to her to get those other things done?"

"If you two are willing to head into the afterlife for it, sure. She's been dead for a couple of years now," she explained to Tracey's amusing expression of discombobulation.

"Oh. Eh, no, on second thought, let's not try that." The redhead shuddered. "Little things only, I guess."

"If you're that uninterested, we could always pretend this conversation never happened…"

"No! I mean," Tracey cleared her throat hastily, "just the familiar ritual is fine. Better than fine, actually. Thank you. Um, how soon can we do this?"

 _That_ _'_ _s a rather good question, actually_. Technically, they could do the ritual right then; the autumnal equinox had passed, the Dark Powers were now in ascendance, and therefore dark magic would be strengthened and dark rituals would be less likely to rebound on the hapless witch who performed them. That said, it was still early in October, and less than a month after that exchange of power, while better than a time when the Light was on top, was still not a good date for working complicated magics.

There  _was_  one notable exception, but this most definitely would not qualify.

 _The best time to perform a dark ritual, bar none, is the winter solstice. That is when the Dark Powers are at their peak, after all. Unfortunately, I already have a different task I need to complete on that day. I_ _ **could**_ _just do them both, I suppose, but the more dark magic I work in such a short period, the more likely I am to draw the Baron's attention. He has his eye on me enough already._  She shuddered at that thought; if she never spoke to her patron Power again, she would be perfectly content.  _A week should be enough to let his interest wane back to its normal state, right? So that means the twenty-eighth at the earliest. Then again, there_ _ **is**_ _an even better time…_

"New Year's Day," she stated definitively.

Tracey gaped and begged, "That far away? Couldn't it be sooner?"

"It  _could_  be, but rituals weren't outlawed just because some Light fool had his sensibilities offended. They're dangerous if done incorrectly, and part of doing them properly means figuring out the most advantageous time to work them. New Year's is a time of fresh starts and reinforcing relationships with others, so for what we'll be doing – forging a brand new connection between you and Vesta – this is the best possible date."

"You're the expert," the other girl said with a despondent groan. "Well, I was planning on staying in the castle anyway, so it probably won't be too bad. I'm just worried that something will happen to her in the meantime."

Jen sighed and reached over to pat Tracey's hand. "I know, and it's a reasonable fear, but there's little else we can do. I won't be in the castle myself, but I'll send Loki with a message when it's time to meet."

"You won't be here?"

"No. Sirius was selected at the host for this year's Solstice Ball, which means I can't get out of attending as well. Unlike someone else I can name, I have to  _work_  to stay in my Head of House's good graces," she added with a gentle jab.

"Well, I most likely  _won't_  be attending the party this year," Tracey replied with a weak grin. "It's sad, I know, but you'll just have to get through it without my elegance and charm."

"It will be a hardship, but I'm sure I'll survive somehow."

* * *

Luna sprinted down the hallway, the people she passed giving her strange glances before choosing to ignore her. That was normal; what wasn't were the three small creatures hovering around her. Looking like fist-sized snowballs with purple bat wings and blue button eyes, the Foghuffers would be cute were it not for their too-wide mouths filled with large, triangular, very real teeth and the raspy voice they had as they repeated continuously,  _"Hurry. Hurry. Hurry."_

 _I_ _'_ _m hurrying as fast as I can!_ , she mentally shouted back, her feet pounding the stone floors as she chased the Whibblestumper ahead of her. The nine-legged jackal had appeared along with the Foghuffers, and she knew right off that it was the one she had 'birthed' with Jen; none of the others had those heterochromatic green and purple irises or the long stripes of white fur criss-crossing their backs. With a simple command – "Fetch", something she privately always found amusing – it had run back toward the Black heiress, and she had been chasing it ever since.

 _The one day,_ _ **one day**_ _, I leave my personal reading in the common room instead of in my bag and have to go back for it before anyone has a chance to take it. Of course she would choose today to do something interesting!_  The last time the Foghuffers had been this insistent that she see Jen was the previous year when the older girl had revealed that she was not only capable of but had unbelievably  _mastered_  wandless casting, all at a tender fourteen years of age. In that light, what could she be up to now that had the snowballs in such a tizzy?

At the end of the corridor, she could just barely make out the goal of her quest passing by, and she shouted, "Jen! Wait up!"

The raven-haired girl's head appeared from behind the wall hiding the rest of her body. "Luna? Where are you running off to?"

"Fog… huffers… you…" she panted as she came to a stop just a few feet from her roommate and secret crush. The other girl was a tease in the worst way, but she was certain that despite all the free glances at soft succulent skin she had been given and the sly innuendos that sent heat shooting down through her loins, Jen was still unaware of just how big a candle Luna held for her.

And that was the way it had to stay. Sadly.

The heiress stepped backward a pace and held out a hand. "Stop, breathe, and  _then_  tell me what's going on."

A few more gasps let her regain her breath, and she quickly explained, "The Foghuffers told me… you found something interesting." That was a bit of a stretch; the flying creatures spoke only a few words, never enough for an elaborate message, but their presence was an indication that something that would intrigue her was occurring elsewhere. Despite how unusual they looked, they had never led her somewhere she did  _not_ wish to be, and her father often used their hints to find sources for his articles.

"One of these days, we're going to have a sit-down where you tell me about all your creatures and just what they can do," Jen replied slowly, looking at her with an assessing gaze. She turned her head to the side and asked, "It was not part of our agreement initially—"

"She may join us," interrupted a second woman's voice, one tight as though from anxiety. Jen nodded and waved for her to join them, and her silver eyes grew wide when they landed on the other speaker. How had Jen ever convinced the  _Grey Lady_  of all beings to talk?

"Excellent." The specter drifted ahead, the two living girls quickly following her. The elder Raven leaned closer to Luna and whispered, "She was one of the castle's original ghosts and knew the Founders personally. She even called Slytherin her  _uncle_ ," she added, causing the blonde to gasp faintly. "She's agreed to tell me, and now us, a few things about them."

The phantom slipped through a portion of seemingly blank wall, and Jen reached out and grasped the empty air just short of the cold stone. With a swift jerk, the facade of an unblemished wall faded, and the rough wooden door stuttered open. The room beyond was plain, just a small oval space without furnishings. Luna looked around futilely for someplace to sit, but Jen simply snapped her fingers and conjured a chair.

Just one, she noticed as the other girl sat, and her confusion turned to eager nervousness when the raven-haired witch blithely patted one thigh. Slowly, so she might hide how excited she was, she sat in Jen's lap and resisted the urge to wiggle; a warm puff of air against her left ear caused her to glance to the side only to find the other girl's head resting on her shoulder. Pale arms wrapped around her belly and pulled her close, and it was a hard thing not to squeak.

"We're here and ready," Jen said, ignorant of her comfortable discomfort. "Enlighten us."

"It is good that you are ready, but you have yet to say what it is you wish to hear," was the ghost's calm response.

Unable to withhold her enthusiasm, Luna cheered, "How about how the school was founded? All the history books just say that the Founders built it, but not how or when or what else was going on at the time. You can tell us about what they were like while you're going through the rest of it."

"That will suffice, I suppose." The Grey Lady lowered herself to the floor, her cloak and dress pooling beneath her. "I was very young when the Founders first gathered, no more than three, so much of what I know about that time is from them telling me about it. I was traveling with the Lady Rowena—"

"Wait, why would Ravenclaw be traveling with a three-year-old?" Jen asked shrewdly.

The spectral woman looked shocked and disturbed at the unexpected question, and she looked around the room before meeting the girls' eyes. "I… That is, Rowena Ravenclaw was more than just my teacher. She was also… I have not introduced myself, have I?" she asked with a sigh.

"You have not."

"I always hoped to keep my identity secret, but I suppose that I am unpracticed when it comes to carefully guiding my words around the truth rather than simply refusing to speak." The Grey Lady braced herself and regretfully admitted, "I am Helena, daughter of Rowena the Raven-Clawed."

"Rowena Ravenclaw was your  _mother_?!" Luna repeated in astonishment.

"She was, though how much actual mothering she did is up for debate. She cared more for her apprentices than her own child, and it was Aunt Helga who truly took care of me until I was old enough to learn the mysteries of magic." Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath to calm herself, the now-named Helena resumed her tale. "The first Founder to arrive at this valley and make it a place of safety was Helga, a Saxon witch who immigrated from the mainland, along with her apprentices. She chose this location because the vast forest surrounding it, filled with centaurs and dryads and trolls, acted as a natural defense for the land; the only entrance into the valley was a series of narrow mountain passes running along the river that feeds into the lake. Second came Godric, a Muggleborn sword-fighter who, though without any formal magical training, had cobbled together an interesting if inefficient method of enhancing his ability with a blade with his power. He had a few students, but primarily he was a mercenary who traveled through the land in search of greater fame and fortune. The next to join was Salazar; he had heard of the pair through rumor as he passed through the nearby towns, and he came both to check their veracity as well as to meet fellow wizards. Unlike the others, he was far more conscious of the need for security in their refuge, and as he possessed a skilled hand for runes, he erected a truly impressive set of wards over the entire land, many of which still stand today.

"My mother was the last to arrive, and ironically, she would have passed the valley by entirely had she not felt the power of Salazar's wards. Curious as to who had erected them, for warding and enchanting were disciplines she had little exposure to, she and her own apprentices carefully picked their way through the maze of the forest rather than search for the mountain path the others had used. It was only her talent with her wand that allowed us to make it through without being driven out or killed." Helena smiled weakly, her eyes gazing at a sight far away from the walls surrounding them. "My mother always did have an appreciation for her little luxuries; though she enjoyed the peace and beauty of this place, she would not stand for living in tents or bedrolls as the others did and instead built a longhouse so that she could be more comfortable. It took some cajoling, but the others eventually convinced her to magic up more for them to use."

The ghost shook her head. "You asked about how Hogwarts was founded, and despite what your books may say, in truth it nearly did not come about. Each of the four had their own skills that they sought to teach to their students: Godric and Uncle Salazar I have already mentioned, and my own mother worked primarily with charms and transfiguration. Aunt Helga, on the other hand, practiced the more traditional witchcrafts of brewing potions, peering into the future, and – unusually, especially for that time – teaching her students to read and write, in Latin as well as the dialects of German and English commonly spoken. None of the four had any interests in building a school, for in those days such a thing had never been conceived. Witches and wizards with knowledge would wander the country, earning coin however they may, and any interested in what they knew could petition for the right to become students. If they were accepted, they would leave their homes and travel with their master until either they were dismissed or felt they had learned all they could and left of their own accord. Even having a refuge to return to, the Founders continued their migratory ways, returning to the valley whenever they were in the area but taking no pains to do so on anything resembling a regular schedule.

"No, it was their students whom you have to thank for this school coming into existence. My mother and Uncle Salazar spent extensive periods of time together," Helena grinned then, "and if my younger brothers' ability to speak to snakes like he could were any indication, those rendezvous were not  _purely_ intellectual." Her face flushed, Luna could not help but giggle at that, and Jen shook behind and under her while low chuckles reached her ear. "As a result, their apprentices were more friendly to each other than they necessarily were to the students of the other two, and it was two enterprising wizards who first had the idea of sharing with each other the lessons they had received from their respective teachers. That idea spread throughout their camps, and it did not take long for the disciples of Aunt Helga and Godric to ask to join these 'study groups'.

"It took… oh, perhaps two or three years for the Founders themselves to notice what was going on – most masters were quite protective of the knowledge that had been passed down to them and that they had expanded on, so the students were highly circumspect about their meetings – and when they sat down to discuss it, they realized that the younger generation had stumbled upon a very interesting idea. For the next year, the four held lectures for the entire group, only occasionally at first but quickly growing more frequent, and when that experiment was complete, they agreed that their apprentices would be far better served learning from each of them equally rather than share their knowledge sporadically with whomever was in the valley at the time.

"The Founders continued to travel and find students in hamlets, villages, and towns across the country, but now that they could move faster since they no longer had large groups of teenagers following them, the number of students swelled more than they had expected. Soon the longhouses did not provide enough space, and it was actually Godric who suggested they construct a single building to eat, sleep, and teach in, something solid and sturdy Uncle Salazar could tie the wards to and enchant for even greater protection. Originally it was what you would today consider a large manor, and over the next few centuries it would be added to until it became the castle you are familiar with. Once the school was complete, the students were grouped by gender and year, with each individual receiving a bracelet or ring from the previous classes with a colored gem to signify which Founder had brought them to the valley. All was well for nearly a decade, but then the fractures began to show."

Jen suggested in a knowing tone, "You mean how Slytherin despised Muggleborn and he and Gryffindor got into a duel about it?"

"That is not  _exactly_  how things happened," Helena denied. "Uncle Salazar did not hate either Muggleborn or Muggles; he was  _distrustful_  of them. And he had good reason to be. During his travels, especially after the school was founded, he encountered particularly religious parents of young witches and wizards, parents who were fearful of the  _'unnatural'_  abilities their children had begun to develop and sought to have them  _'purified'_  of their talents."

Luna felt Jen squeeze her belly suddenly, and a quick glance down revealed that the older girl's fists were tightly clenched on her blouse.  _I had forgotten; her foster parents acted in a similar fashion after witnessing her own bouts of accidental magic. I wonder if they said the same things about her when she was still very young?_  Returning her eyes to the phantom speaking to them, she slid her hands down to cover Jen's own and provide at least some meager comfort.

Unaware of the emotions her audience was experiencing at the moment, Helena continued, "Those parents, convinced that he was there to lure their afflicted children into demonic pacts or some such nonsense, were quick to try to kill him. Some, more clever than the rest, even pretended to accept his explanations and offered him a place to stay for the night, and after he was asleep they would notify the rest of the villagers or the town's guard and attempt to capture him so he might be tried and executed. After enough repetitions of that pattern, he told the other Founders that any young wizard raised amongst Muggles could not be trusted and should be watched closely at the very least or, preferably, should never be made aware of Hogwarts's existence.

"Godric, a Muggleborn himself as I have said, obviously did not take kindly to this position."

"Understandable, but I have to say that I can see where Slytherin was coming from, too," Jen commented. "Just to clarify, however, as what you have said conflicts with the accepted 'common knowledge' of today: you are sure that he did not want the Muggleborn  _dead_ , just banned from the school?"

"I am certain; Uncle Salazar mourned the loss of every drop of magical blood. It was not the circumstances of their birth he held against the Muggleborn, but the environments in which they were raised. In fact, he at one point said that he would have no issues with accepting students born to Muggles provided they were taken from their birth parents at a young age and instead raised among our own kind. That was even more unpalatable than his other opinions, however, and he did not voice it again.

"I had just passed my eighteenth year when Godric and Uncle Salazar had their now-famous falling out, though it has been exaggerated greatly over the centuries. Godric, Aunt Helga, and my mother did not band against him, for instance; it was a personal matter between the two men. Nor was there a duel, per se, though they did raise sword and wand to each other in their anger. They had an intensely heated argument over their respective positions, and it ended with Uncle Salazar saying that he never should have expected sense from  _'an arrogant, prideful, self-serving sell-sword with pretensions of honor'_  and Disapparating away before Godric could respond. This was not the first argument they had had, nor was this the only topic they had clashed on, but it  _was_  by far the most vicious. We all expected him to return in a few days after he had a chance to calm down, but…" The ghost shrugged helplessly. "We never saw him again, and a year later we had no choice but to give him up for dead. Neither my mother nor I ever forgave Godric for his role in the disappearance of my unofficial uncle, and as far as I know, my half-brothers, whom I have always believed were his sons, did not speak another courteous word to the man."

"That's terrible," the blonde whispered sadly.

The Black witch's voice was less sympathetic than her own, merely curious. "Indeed, but if Salazar was as misunderstood as you claim, it leads me to wonder why he built the Chamber of Secrets I have heard such rumors about, not to mention why he placed his 'monster' inside it."

"Uncle Salazar did have a hand in planning the initial construction, and he did have his Chamber built, but contrary to the claims made in recent times, it was not to 'purge the school' or such silliness. He was the one in charge of arranging the defenses, and while he placed great faith in his wards and the enchantments on the walls, he wanted the students to have a more active protector as well. To that end, he hatched a basilisk in secret."

"A basilisk?!" Luna shrieked. So far, Slytherin had come across as a rather sensible and even sympathetic man, but this stretched her newfound understanding. Who in their right minds would  _ever_  think hiding a snake that could murder with a glance and could only be killed by the crow of a rooster at dawn in a  _school_ was a good idea?!

"Yes. None of the others were at all amused by his choice of guardian and wished it destroyed. The compromise they eventually reached was that the serpent could live and stay within the school, but it was to be placed under a spell to force it to obey only commands given by a Parselmouth and it had to be kept in a magical sleep when it was not needed. The wards have always been up to the task of hiding and protecting the school, however, so that scenario never came to pass."

_Oh. Okay, that's not as bad as I thought. There were_ _**some** _ _safeguards. Still, that raises the question of just who unleashed it a few years ago. We know it wasn't Danny Potter, if for the sole reason that a Halfblood would find blood purity a hard sell, but no one was ever expelled or arrested for the attacks. Parseltongue is a rare skill; how many people in this school could possibly speak it?_

The trio were silent for a few moments, and eventually Helena asked, "Was there anything else you wished to know about them, or is our bargain now complete?"

_Bargain?_

"Completely random question," Jen began, her lack of confusion explaining what the ghost meant. Of course her too-Slytherin roommate would have struck some kind of deal with the specter. "Who came up with the name Hogwarts, and why is it called a school of witchcraft  _and_  wizardry? That has always bothered me," she explained to Luna's sidelong look of curiosity.

"It was the students who had been the impetus for the school's founding, so the Founders left the name up to them. As for its title, it is a holdover from that time.  _'Wizardry'_  was used specifically to refer to wand-magics, what my mother and Godric taught; Aunt Helga and Uncle Salazar's disciplines of potions, divination, runes, as well as anything else that did not require a wand, were considered witchcraft, a completely separate entity. They wished to advertise that they taught both types, a rarity when a witch could spend her entire life trying to master only one of them."

Helena stood upright and turned to the far wall, and a question suddenly made its way to Luna's mind. Knowing she would likely never have a chance to ask it again, she nearly shouted, "The diadem!" The ghost jerked to a stop, allowing her to continue, "Your mother's diadem. People have been searching for it for centuries, but no one knows where it could be. Do you—"

"It is in a hidden place, one far from here where no one else can ever be tempted by it." That terse explanation given and revealing nothing, the spectral representative of their house shot forward and through the stone.

"Well, well, well. Looks like someone has a sore spot."

The blonde turned to ask what Jen meant, and her cheeks suddenly flared red when she realized that the raven-haired girl had twisted her own head to look at her. The tips of their noses were less than a centimeter apart, and she wanted desperately to lick her suddenly dry lips as she felt the puffs of Jen's breath against them. Was this…? Should she…?

"I had hoped for more information, but at least what we heard was interesting," Jen continued, totally blind to the chaos of emotions swirling around inside her. The older witch turned away, giving her heart a chance to slow down from the rabbit's pace it had adopted, and opened her elaborately decorated pocket watch. "Everyone else is already through lunch by now. We'd better head down if we want to grab anything before classes resume."

"Y-Yeah. Right." Regretfully she left her place upon the heiress's soft, warm lap. Before she could do anything else, Jen had also stood, and she felt a hand resting upon her hip. Her crush gave her a single gentle tug toward the door, and she had to bite her lip when those thin fingers then slid around to brush accidentally against the upper surface of her right buttock. "Y-You go on ahead. I just, er, need to take a shower, and then I'll… I'll just grab something from the kitchens later."

Jen delicately cocked her head, but eventually she nodded and departed. Finally alone, Luna sighed. She needed to take a shower, all right.

A long,  _cold_  shower.

* * *

**Oh, poor little Luna. I'd say I was sorry for teasing her, and all of you in the process… but I'm really not.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	21. Unwitting and Unwilling Allies

**Let's see… Special thanks go to The Sinful, who created a TV Tropes page for this series; Obsessive Consumptive Reader, ShadowCub, skywiseskychan, The Sinful (again), and whitetigerwolf for serving as sounding boards for a future plot point; and bissek for coming up with this week's disclaimer.**

**Manic Dogma:**  I suppose I should have been clearer about the Black Curse. It primarily affects members of House Black, but it isn't a constant malady; it presents in fits and starts, so all the Blacks over a period of a couple of generations might die young, and then they'll go a century or two without it happening. Anyone with Black blood can "catch" the Curse, but since the magical bloodlines are so tightly entwined, that describes just about every member of nobility. And yes, Vesta's name is a reference to  _Game Theory_ , though it also fits with the other Classic mythology references I make a habit of tossing in.

 **azrael-rose, C. Nile De'Mencia, Guest:**  Why Luna thinks she can't get with Jen is a very good question, and the answer lies in the social structure of magical Britain. Recall that the Blacks are an Ancient and Most Noble House; they are not just nobility, but sit at the very top of the ladder, their only equals being the Houses of Bones and Longbottom. The Lovegoods are  _not_  a noble House. Outside Hogwarts (as well as in Slytherin), nobles and commoners rubbing elbows is rare, and while it isn't  _that_  strange for Hogwarts friends to keep in touch despite the social distance once they graduate, Luna knows that a relationship with Jen is nigh impossible for that reason. Add in that she is fully aware that Jen will eventually be in a political marriage to continue her line (along with her ignorance about Ladies being practically expected to have a paramour on the side), and she is sure that any romantic advances she makes will be rebuffed.

Oh, and she doesn't know that Jen's bisexual, which makes  _everything_  more complicated.

**The last few chapters of this story have been fairly fun and light-hearted, haven't they? Time to fix that.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did Umbridge spend so much time looking for reasons in the present to discredit Dumbledore when his actions in book 1 alone would be sufficient to have him and half the faculty arrested? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 21  
** **Unwitting and Unwilling Allies**

Dolores tapped her quill impatiently as she perused her notes. For the past couple of weeks, ever since the the final course reviews – bar one – had been sent out, she had looked for other ways to undermine Dumbledore's authority. The inspections, which she thought would be the perfect strategy, had unfortunately proven less useful than expected.

Oh, she had made some progress in her secondary goal, ridding the castle of undesirables, but that had translated into little she could use against the man himself. Snape, for instance, was just as abhorrent an individual as she had been told, treating everyone as if they were something he would wipe off his boots. It was one thing for him to be rude to a bunch of mudbloods, but he forgot his own station when he directed his ire at the Purebloods in his class, Hufflepuffs though they may have been. The Halfblood treating his betters in such a callous manner had incensed her, and even had he not been on her list of targets for being one of Dumbledore's charity cases, she would have done what she could to throw him out then and there. The tenuousness of her own position meant she was unable to do as she would with him directly, but given his apparent temperament and the information she had charmed out of Burbage and Sinistra, probation would accomplish the same task, just over a longer time frame.

Her next target, of course, was Flitwick; half-breeds had no business teaching human children, and if she were in charge, that goblin wouldn't even be allowed to wield a wand as if he were a real wizard. Unfortunately, the creature was a decent teacher – better by far than either Potter, a known sycophant of Dumbledore's, or that fraud Trelawney – so while she would keep an eye on him, her current authority did not give her the reach to strike out at him. The same was true of McGonagall, the witch much too loyal to the headmaster to be worth keeping, especially in a position of importance like Deputy Headmistress.

Considering the backlash Cornelius was  _still_  facing after the Azkaban guards rebelled and stole away all the Dementors and high-security prisoners, likely in a misguided attempt to depose the rightful Minister of Magic, the lack of progress she was currently facing rankled.

Still, while she could not lash out at those oh-so-deserving targets yet, she still had a few options she could put into play in the meantime. A quick addendum to the original Educational Decree that made her the Curriculum Inspector submitted a few days earlier had expanded her oversight to include reviewing how the school was run during times of danger or turmoil; over the past month of keeping her eyes open, listening to the rumors of the staff, and reading the transcripts generated by a few enchanted quills linked to listening charms she had placed in the ladies' lavatories, she had been astonished at just how lax the Hogwarts faculty seemed to have taken internal security and had promptly forwarded the details to the DME and Cornelius. Some of the things she had heard made her wonder just how much was being hidden from the proper authorities.

 _None of which would have ever happened, or at most would have only started before being shut down, had Hogwarts been under Ministerial control from the beginning as it_ _ **should**_ _have._  There  _was_  a upside to the information she had gathered: though she had her doubts that this by itself would give Dumbledore enough rope to hang himself, it should still be worth one or two more nails in his coffin. It also gave her a reason to call in some of the students for a series of one-on-one chats; not many, lest the senile Muggle-lover catch wind of it, but the intel she collected now would certainly serve her well in a later expansion of her and the Ministry's powers later.

She had obviously started with the Slytherins, knowing members of her old house would be the most liable to give her the gritty details as they knew them, and now she was working through the rest of the houses. Another glance at the notes she had jotted down upon the parchment in front of her made her frown.  _Kenneth Towler_ , it read,  _Gryffindor year 7. Prefect. Pureblood (common House). Distant from rest of house, grudge against Weasley children? Member of Black's entourage. No romance, no connections to undesirables. No noticed Dumbledore influence._

"Member of Black's entourage," she muttered, her eyes flicking to the lowest drawer of her filing cabinet. In that drawer, beneath the other files, was a locked false bottom with an Extension Charm in which she had placed the information she had gathered on 'special interests', including Potter the junior and his cronies, Dumbledore's biggest followers on the faculty, and Black, among others. The first two categories were obviously hurdles she needed to get rid of, but as for Black herself…

 _I'm not sure what to make of that girl_ , Dolores admitted to herself.  _On the one hand, she seems to have a right and proper mindset if what I heard from members of the Wizengamot is correct, and her family has always been a pillar of society. On the other, she is the spawn of the elder Potter, and the current Lord Black was once part of Dumbledore's camp, even if he has not made any obvious signs that they are still allied. There're also her followers to consider; they are mostly Pureblood excepting the Hufflepuff boy and the Davis girl, but while a Halfblood herself, that girl is still the heiress to a Dark house. The only other underling of hers who has a known political leaning is Bones's niece._

_Is she going to be a hindrance, a help, or wholly unimportant?_

There was a knock on the door, and she swept the parchment into her desk drawer and slid it closed. "Come in," she called sweetly.

Opening the door, Towler stuck his head inside. "You wanted to see me, Professor?"

Taking a mental note at his mildly distrustful tone – which, along with the rest of the information she had about him, suggested that he was likely suspicious of authority or perhaps just other people in general; not the best she could hope for, but better than some of the alternatives – she nodded congenially and indicated the seat on the other side of her desk. "Yes, Mr. Towler, I did. It's nothing bad; I invited you here today so I could speak with you in my capacity as the Hogwarts Curriculum Inspector." She smiled slightly, carefully making it polite but not necessarily friendly; such subtleties were often lost upon Gryffindors, but better she waste the effort than be careless against the rare Lion who  _could_  tell the difference. "Don't worry, everything you say in this room will be held in confidence, I assure you."

Mollified by her promise, he fully entered the room and sat in the proffered chair, his eyes roving across the room and staring in muted shock and horror at the numerous plates decorating the walls. She kept her displeasure to herself; she had never understood why so many people had trouble with kittens. They were cute.

"Tea?" she offered, indicating the silver tea service at her side. At his nod, she happily filled two cups; she had made sure to add a little Draught of Peace that she had ordered from a very discreet apothecary to the pitcher beforehand, a trick she had learned had a way of loosening the unwary's lips. It was no Veritaserum, but unlike the truth potion, it would also not make what she was doing quite so obvious. She had already drunk several cups of the brew today, but thanks to a neutralizing potion she received from the same source, she remained unaffected. "I know you have your studies to get back to, but I had some questions I wished to ask regarding various…  _incidents_ , shall we say?… that have occurred in this school over the past few years. You aren't the first student I've spoken to, and there are several others I will meet with later, but every perspective helps."

"Why me, then?" he asked cautiously. "I'm nobody special."

She shrugged lightly and lied, "Random selection." In truth, she had picked him specifically because of how he was potentially on the outs with the rest of his house and therefore would be less likely to give her the party line. "I'd like to start with something fairly recent, specifically the alleged vandalization by Sirius Black of the portrait guarding the Gryffindor dorms. The Fat Lady, I believe it's called."

The boy's eyebrows shot up. " _'Alleged'_?"

"The Lord Black did not admit to causing the damage during his trial, and as you know, portrait testimony is not considered evidence in a court of law." He shook his head in confusion. "You didn't know that?"

"No, I didn't. Why isn't what the Fat Lady said good enough for evidence?"

"Portraits are not  _people_ , Mr. Towler, just ink moved by magic. As such, it is exceedingly easy to deceive them, either by directly interfering with their animation charms or using simple spells to disguise oneself. Because of this, any damage inflicted upon it is incapable of being proven to be the work of Sirius Black. Returning to our original topic," she said, looking at his cup long enough for him to become uncomfortable and take a sip of the doctored beverage, "what do you know about the circumstances of either the act itself or the staff's response to it?"

"Not much," he admitted. "They said they'd be on the lookout for anything else, but nothing ever came of it to my knowledge."

"And you were already a prefect at that time, correct?" He nodded. "Strange; I would think they would keep their representatives to the students better informed." She almost smiled at that; with those simple words, a tiny seed had been planted. "Very well, then. What about the year before, with the opening of the Chamber of Secrets? Was the perpetrator ever discovered? What the  _'monster'_  was that caused the attacks?"

"You know, I've asked around about that very thing a few times," Towler mentioned after drinking some more of the tea and relaxing a bit as the potion took further effect. "No one has any ideas, aside from the expected stupidity, of course. Rumor is that Potter had a hand in  _stopping_  whoever and whatever it was, but beyond that? Nothing. The next year, several of the prefects wrote a letter requesting Professor Dumbledore at least tell us what had happened, but all he did was repeat Professor McGonagall's announcement that the matter had been resolved. I would have expected the Weasley twins to talk more about it, but that entire family closed ranks tight."

"Oh? Why is that, do you think?" This was news to her; had the Weasleys had a part to play in that particular debacle?

He shrugged. "All I have is hearsay, but supposedly their little sister was kidnapped and taken into the Chamber. They denied it all, but no one saw her when we were ordered back to the Tower, and they were a little  _too_  quick to say it had nothing to do with her, you know? That's just my personal opinion."

"Of course. Moving on, I remember how most of the Gryffindors I knew while I was in school acted, and if they had been presented with a forbidden corridor and a vague warning of painful death, few of them would have been able to resist taking a peek," she trailed off with a knowing smirk.

"Professor, I'm many things," he replied, the faint sheen in his eyes the sole evidence of the potion's effect. "Brave, hard-working, charming even. But I'm not an idiot. If I'm told that someplace is deadly, I'm staying far, far  _away_  from it."

"A smart decision. Did anyone find out what was so terrible about it, or did that mystery go unsolved like the Chamber of Secrets?"

"Oh, plenty of people found a giant three-headed dog inside, and that was good enough for them," the boy answered.

 _Three_ _…_ _headed_ _…_ _dog?_  She took another sip to hide her shock.  _What in Merlin_ _'_ _s name was a_ _ **cerberus**_ _doing inside a_ _ **school**_ _?_

"You said you went to school here?"

She turned her thoughts from the confused anticipation in her mind. If that was true, Dumbledore would soon have some very uncomfortable questions to answer. "Yes. Slytherin, class of '51. I hope you won't hold that against me, especially considering our next topic."

"Oh," he muttered, his face falling. " _That_."

"Yes,  _that_. I see what I heard about an outright  _war_ breaking out between Slytherin and Gryffindor in 1990 wasn't an exaggeration," Dolores said, taking no pains to hide her disapproval.

"It…  _might_  have been? A little?" She kept her stare on Towler, and he looked down. "But probably not."

"Care to explain how that came about?"

"I'd honestly rather not," he answered with a sigh, "but I suppose that isn't an option. What do you want to know?"

"Give me an overview. Who and what started it, what made it worse, how it was finally resolved, how long it lasted. Basics like that."

The boy sighed. "It was our fault. Well, I say ours; more like the Weasley twins'. All the previous year, they had played a bunch of pranks on the first-year Slytherins, and once we moved to second year, they had the bright idea of taking it up a notch. They went after a third-year and hit her with a balloon filled with a powder that made her sneeze uncontrollably.  _Unfortunately_ , they didn't realize she had asthma."

"Oh, dear."

"Yeah," he drawled uncomfortably. "Not only did the powder trigger an attack and keep her from breathing, the sneezing also made it impossible for her to swallow her potion to stop it. They only knew they had a problem on their hands when she turned blue and fell to the ground. Needless to say, the other Slytherins… didn't take that well."

He looked at his now-empty teacup with a faint frown, and a wave of her wand had it refilled. "Thank you. I have to admit, I don't blame them in any way for it; if a prank gone wrong caused one of  _my_  housemates to have her life actually be in danger, I'd be howling for blood, too, and in hindsight, McGonagall letting the twins off with only a month of detention didn't help matters any. After a week or so – and I think the Slytherins tried and failed multiple times to return the favor to the twins directly, though I don't have any proof of that – someone decided that any Lion was a fair target. Because of the delay, the rest of my house saw their prank, a particularly vicious one that involved setting conjured hornets on a lone third-year, as a new attack instead of a retaliation. I'm ashamed to admit it now, but at the time I thought about it the same way. Both sides believed they held the moral high ground, so nobody gave an inch, and things just… escalated."

"How long did the conflict last?" She asked, curiosity running rampant. None of the Slytherins she had interviewed had been willing to discuss much about the happenings that particular school year, even when affected by Draught of Peace, and the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws had known about it only peripherally.

"Until… March? Early April? Considering it started right after Halloween, a long time. The professors finally put a stop to it after several of us got in a brawl in the halls and we all had to go to the hospital wing to have everything straightened out. Forty people got detention for the rest of the year, and both our houses had their points dropped to zero." He shook his head. " _Hufflepuff_  won the House Cup. It was humiliating."

"You were one of those involved?" she asked, getting a nod in reply. Dolores shared a small, sympathetic grin. "How did your parents take that?"

"With how protective  _my_  mum is?" he laughed. "It was terrible; she…"

She watched in confusion as he suddenly stopped and his eyebrows furrowed together. "Mr. Towler?"

"I didn't tell them," he whispered. "I was going to, but for some reason, I didn't."

 _Now_ _ **that**_ _is an interesting titbit._  A suspicion suddenly forming, she leaned forward to look him in the eye. "What about the other unusual events that occurred in this school? Did you write to them about those?"

"…Now that I think about it, I never did. How in Merlin's name could I have  _forgotten_  to tell them about a  _monster_  attacking students in the corridors?"

 _How, indeed? A monster loose in Hogwarts_ _–_ _one besides a cerberus, at least_ _–_ _would have been front-page news. Yet somehow, not_ _ **one**_ _student leaked the story?_ Such a set of circumstances beggared belief, but that was what had come to pass. If something happened when by all rights it should not…

_Someone used magic on them to keep the information suppressed. Someone who had something to lose if it got out? Whomever could_ _**that** _ _describe?_

Dolores set her thoughts aside and stood from her chair, causing the boy to jump. "Well, thank you very much for telling me all of this, Mr. Towler. It was quite helpful. I don't want to take up any more of your time." He nodded half-heartedly, his mind still elsewhere, and moved to leave. "Oh, but one more thing? Would you mind terribly keeping the fact that I'm conducting these interviews to yourself? I don't want anyone to be unduly stressed by worrying that they will be called in."

In reality, she just did not want Dumbledore and his errand boys to find out that she was asking questions like this. While she was  _allowed_ , that alone would not prevent the old goat from interfering.

"Yes, of course."

She waited for Towler to shut the door behind him before loosening her hold on her contemplative frown.  _How could Dumbledore stop the entire student body from letting the world know what was going on, either at the time or later on? Compulsion charms would take too long to put on everyone; perhaps a potion in the food? A ward, though that one would have to be specific to the children, else I wouldn't have been able to inform Cornelius or the DME of my findings. Something else entirely?_

_This bears further investigation._

* * *

The owner of the little apothecary glanced over the assorted ingredients and banged out the prices on the till beside him, the machine appearing old enough that it could easily have been taken from a Muggle shop at the turn of the century. "Galleon and eight sickles, miss."

"Galleon and eight? That's highway robbery, that is," the young woman muttered, pushing her red hair out of her face and digging around in her little purse. "If this stuff was worth a whole galleon together, I'd be shocked."

"Well, you can always put that snakeskin back; that's fourteen silver right there. If you grabbed one of the dried ones, it'd be half that price."

She shook her head and counted out the coins. "No, I need it fresh, or the whole thing's ruined. It's finicky like that."

The wizard nodded absently, her words blending in with the rest of the pointless chatter he undoubtedly heard throughout the day; the witch took the bag filled with her purchases and walked out the door and into the crowd.  _I suppose there is a benefit to waiting so long to get what I need_ , she thought as she slipped over to a small alcove and threw a conjured cloak around her shoulders, the hood hiding her face as she rounded the corner to leave Diagon Alley for the shadows of Knockturn.  _Between it being a magical day all on its own and more recently the day Voldemort_ _'_ _fell_ _'_ _, Halloween is a serious business around here, as big or bigger than Christmas. Lots of people going about preparing for it without a care about anyone around them, lots of people somebody can hide amongst if she doesn_ _'_ _t want to be seen._

Spotting the door of her destination, she stepped into Borgin and Burke's; she then ended the transfiguration while pulling her hood down, and black shot through her hair while her eyes faded from brown to their almost-natural purple. The transformed girl looked around the empty room for a moment before she smiled a little and smacked her hand on the bell sitting on the front desk. "Customer up!"

"I heard the bell just fine! You don't have to shout, you little—" A stooped man with short, oily hair charged out of the back office, and his diatribe cut off as he stared at her in surprise. A moment later, Borgin's scowl morphed into a grin. "Well, well, well; look what the kneazle dragged in! It's little Jen, or should I say,  _Miss Black_?" He shook his head with a chuckle. "I can't believe I didn't figure it out all those years ago. Just like your mother, your heart is as dark as your name."

"No need for  _flattery_ , Donald," she answered, stepping forward so he could pull her in a short embrace. "Besides, the reason you didn't know is that we kept it a secret."

He barked out a sharp laugh. "Oh, of course you did. Don't take me for a fool just because you have a fancy title now, girlie. I still remember that little lost lamb who held onto Elsie's skirts for dear life the first time she brought you in here. No way you knew you were a rich brat then."

"And if anyone else hears you say that, I'll tell them I have no idea what you're talking about," she answered coolly. Eyeing his insufferable smirk for a moment, she sighed and shook her head. "So how's business? Are…  _certain_  members of society, shall we say, coming in to examine your wares more often, perchance?"

"You heard about that, then?" the old shopkeeper asked suspiciously.

"Does it surprise you? You know I have most  _excellent_ hearing." Donald nodded at that, no doubt recalling that her listening skills had been sharpened over the years by both blindness and practice. She continued in a serious voice, "Better be careful, though. I wouldn't throw too much of your weight behind the Dark Lord just yet if I were you."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Let's just say that Voldemort managed to brass me off something  _fierce_." He shuddered, though whether it was at her using the black wizard's name or her bared teeth, she had no idea. "And how's the rest of the Alley been doing?"

He brightened now that she had changed the subject and laughed a little. "Most of us are all right, but you better make sure Christiansen doesn't see you. He refused to believe that Elsie's Jen and Jen Black could be the same person until the  _Prophet_  ran that interview with your picture. If he spots you, he just might try to snatch you up anyway."

"Well, he always was an idiot; that he would believe the  _Prophet_  in the first place is proof enough of that. And if he wants to kidnap me… Well, Knockturn could use one fewer pimp, don't you think?" A low-class Pureblood, Stefan Christiansen was a rarity for the way he kept an eye on the Muggle side of the flesh-trade for new talent, and numerous times in the past he had made it clear that he was planning to hire her the minute she looked old enough to pass for seventeen. It was a good thing for  _him_  that Sirius had found her when he did; she liked sex, no mistake about that, but she was done turning tricks for every Tom, Dick, and Harry who could rub two pence together.

More likely than not, she would have just killed him and taken his business as her own.

"So why are you  _really_  here?" Donald asked, pulling her from her momentary reverie. "A neat and proper schoolgirl wouldn't be caught dead in this part of town. I doubt you just want to catch up."

"Well, you're in luck; I'm in a buying mood." She flicked her eyes to the blank stretch of wall to her left and behind the desk. "And I have recently found myself in need of some…  _particular_  items."

Quickly catching on, he nodded ever so slightly and fished a blank silver pendant out from under his shirt, his eyes on the street outside. He touched the bit of jewelry to the till, and immediately the windows darkened to total opacity and the door clicked as three different locks slid home. "Should have known you'd be here for that," he muttered as he walked over to the wall they both knew was not a real wall. A quick muffling charm sprang up around him when he got close enough, and his hand rose to cover his mouth and hide the whispered password. That complete, the spell faded, and the wooden panel pulled up and away to reveal a dimly lit staircase. "This way,  _my lady_."

She rolled her eyes and followed him down to the hidden portion of his shop. Stretching all the way from the floor to the ceiling were several sets of shelves, each one in slight disarray but still filled with any number of rare, valuable, and  _exceedingly_  illegal products. Jen strolled along the aisles, Donald waiting at the entrance to the room, and she called out, "How much business have you done in this side of your work?"

"None of your concern, brat!"

 _Not much, then. A pity, but not a surprise. The average dark witch would have no need for any of these; they're for a very_ _ **specialized**_ _subset of the population_. She found the first item on her mental list and winced; phoenix ash was hard to come by, especially since they only bound themselves to light wizards, but for it to sell for five galleons an  _ounce_? It was a very good thing that she had only a few things to pick up because while the Black vault could easily pay for all this, she wanted to be certain Sirius wouldn't discover any hints of her shopping spree. That meant paying out of the vault she had inherited from Elsie, which was not nearly as full.

She dumped three spoonfuls of ash into a convenient pouch and continued on, spotting what might be her next quarry in the adjacent row. "What animal are these made from?" she asked the wizard, leaving the shelves to lay six candles on the counter. "The label just says  _'tallow'_."

"Not cow, that's for sure."

A faint smile growing on her face at their old game, she laid a finger on her lips as if thinking. "Pig?"

"Getting warmer."

"Ape?" she guessed again.

"So, so close."

Her expression now a wicked grin, she leaned over the stout candles and purred, " _Muggle_?"

He smirked at her. "You caught me."

Her eyes glittered with amusement as she tossed the bag of ash and a flask filled with Abraxan heartblood she had picked up on her way back onto the counter. She hoped not to need the blood – she had a bottle already in the cellar of Elsie's cottage just outside Cardiff – but incubi provided far less of the resource than did the winged horses, so she might need something to supplement it. "How much are you going to gouge me for this?"

"' _Gouge you_ '? My dear, you  _wound_  me; you know I only ever charge a fair price." They both snorted at that; Donald would have sold Mother Borgin without shedding a tear if he thought the price was good, and if she remembered correctly, he actually  _had_  done that to his younger brother. "Let's see… Eh, I'll give you a bit of a break for old time's sake. Only thirty-one galleons for the lot."

"That's a  _break_?" she muttered, fishing in her purse for the money.

"Absolutely. I'm not charging you for the bag you put the ash in." He grinned at her snarl. "I'm almost afraid to ask, but what do you even need all this for?"

"Trust me, you  _don't_  want to know. You'll live longer that way," she hinted darkly, a sharp, mirthless smile adorning her visage.

The wizard paid no heed to her less-than-subtle threat, perhaps knowing that she could not afford to murder him if she wanted to have a convenient location the next time she needed to buy something off the magical black market. "Of course. Plausible deniability, got it."

"One of these days, you're going to cross the wrong person, Donald, and I can only hope I'm there to see it."

"Perhaps," he agreed casually. "But I've been in this business a long time; many have tried, and all have failed. I think I'll take my chances a while longer."

* * *

Standing from her crouch, a piece of chalk dangling loosely from her fingers, Jen glanced out the window of the living room at the setting sun. What she had planned for tonight would work best if begun at the exact moment the sun disappeared below the horizon, and by her estimation, that meant she had only a couple of minutes to finish her setup, and from then less than an hour until she was expected back at Hogwarts. She tossed the chalk onto the kitchen counter and grabbed the platter containing the rest of her tools.

 _First is the blood_ , she thought, sticking a square of snake skin onto the point of a sharpened yew twig and dipping it into the bowl she had filled with a mixture of phoenix ash and the blood she had drained out of Blaise Zabini's fresh corpse the previous year.  _Ash and snakeskin for the symbolism of death and rebirth, yew for its connection to graveyards and the permanently dead. Yew also pairs well with heartblood from an incubus, as extended exposure to either is toxic._

 _Next is the symbols. Arithmantically, the number two represents separation while six means transference_. The snakeskin slid across the wood floor as she traced the pair of circles she had drawn on the floor, the edges overlapped at a single point. She then started on the hexagon circumscribing them; each time the 'brush' she was using ran dry, she discarded it and reddened another. She did  _not_  want to mess this up by contaminating her blood mixture with chalk.

What she was doing was dark magic, not black, but it was a near thing. If that weren't bad enough, it was closer to the demesne of Nyarlathotep or the Leader of the Wild Hunt than the Baron's, which meant she had to be exceedingly careful in how she did this. Her ritual failing would be one thing; having it rebound on her…

Her last brush completed the perimeter of the hexagon just as she ran out of blood.  _Third is the donor_. Levitating it rather than using her hands, she set the golden goblet Voldemort had turned into a soul jar in the middle of one of the circles. Another look out the window at the Welsh landscape, and she picked up the next element.  _Fourth is the anchors_. The candles went to each of the six corners of the hexagon, and a wave of her hand lit them.

 _And last_ … She gently placed Blaise Zabini's skinned and washed skull in the other circle, the sheen of the bone marred by the runes she had etched on every available inch. Stepping away, she touched her bare foot to a third circle, the shape made from sea salt she had poured earlier; it was not as effective as if she had traced the design with her bone dagger, but it was easier to get rid of when she was finished. The space inside the circle suddenly faded from her sonar as it was magically cut off from the rest of the planet. … _is the vessel_.

The sun vanished, and shadows engulfed the sky.

"Miserable soul, you are bound to a form that ill-suits you," she declared, staring at the chalice, the metal glimmering in the firelight. "Trapped in gold that cannot move, that cannot breathe. You remember your flesh, your lively form, and you despair."

Was it just her imagination, or did the shapes on the floor glow with a dull blue light?

"Ripped from your body, torn in twain, you seek bone and blood to dwell in once again. You crave to run, to eat, to mate, to  _live_. Your shell is pretty, but it pales in comparison to the beauty of flesh."

The candlelight took on a sickly red cast.

"You thought precious metal would be a suitable vessel for you, but now you realize the folly of your actions. You are locked away in a trap of your own making, a lie you never considered could be false. Bondage, pain, destruction; these are the consequences of your mistake, and you do not have the power to avoid them."

The flames surged, reaching a full foot in the air, and the goblet visibly shivered.

"Thrown into a pile of similar treasures, you were forgotten. You have no choice but to rely on others, yet no one gives you a second glance. You are less than a memory; once surrounded by followers, you are alone and helpless. Nothing and no one will ever help you. Your fate is sealed."

The goblet fell over to shake and clang against the floor as though suffering a seizure.

She shouted to be heard over the din. "One opportunity do you have to flee the swift wings of oncoming Death! Return to flesh; live in truth and not false seeming! Seek bone to shelter you from the sharp eyes of the carrion birds! Run, run fast, or your achievements will be forgotten! Run, lest your hope of life be shattered forever! Run or die, now and for all time!"

The goblet suddenly stilled; the candles all winked out. The only source of illumination was the actinic glow emanating from the bloody designs on the ground, but that was sufficient. Dark mist rose from the cup, coalescing into a black cloud that twisted in the air as if seeking some means of escape. After a moment it sank back to the floorboards, spreading across the space it was trapped in until it met the gleaming circle. The smoke soaked into the shape, smothering the light, and it flowed over the lit path to surround the skull. Rising and gathering again into a single mass, vaporous fingers caressed the smooth bone, and then it seeped into the othala rune carved deep in the skull's forehead.

The blue glow was gone, and in its place were baleful red flames glaring from empty sockets.

"For the Baron's sake, you're an idiot," Jen laughed, snapping her fingers to reignite the house's lamps and scuffing her toes through the salt circle; through the window she could see the sky had brightened, now resembling the early evening it was rather than a moonless midnight. "Then again, you  _did_  shear your soul into pieces, so I suppose that's only to be expected."

The skull shifted on its own, and then a hoarse voice came out of its mouth. "Who… are you?"

"I? I am Jennifer Black. Who do you claim to be?"

"I am… Tom Riddle," it answered, its voice growing stronger, "but… the world will… know me by… a different… name. I am—"

"The Dark Lord Voldemort, killer of fools and terror to small woodland creatures." The bony jaw clacked shut. "I'm guessing he snipped you off before he got started on his supposed 'glorious revolution'."

"What? How…?"

She shrugged and seated herself in front of the talking head, a flick of her finger vanishing the salt and blood and sending the chalice into the open cabinet nearby. "Let's make things easy. Tell me the last date you can remember."

"May eighth… 1956."

"You split your soul while the Light Powers were still ascendant?" Jen asked in surprise. "I don't know if that was brave or foolhardy. And just to let you know, today is October thirty-first, 1995."

"Almost forty years. How did you… discover my Horcrux?"

 _Horcrux? Must be what he calls his soul jars_. "Bought it in a car boot sale. Thought it would make a nice centerpiece, but then I realized what was stuck inside it." She smirked. "If I had known you were there, I could have knocked another quid or two off the price."

The skull sneered at her lie, and she was momentarily distracted as she wondered how the skull could move like that. She certainly had not enchanted it with the runes needed to allow him facial expressions. "You  _will_  give me the respect I'm due, mudblood."

"Mudblood?" she repeated with a laugh. "Look who's talking.  _I_  bear the name of an Ancient and Most Noble House; you're a nobody. Tom  _Riddle_? If anyone's of Muggle stock, it'd be you."

"You dare—"

"Stop talking." The skull immediately became silent, and she picked him up to carry him out of the room. "Allow me to clear up a misconception you seem to have. I give the orders, you obey; I demand respect, you grant it. I spent the past five weeks carving runes all over your new vessel, and with you now inhabiting it, they might as well be written on your very essence." Tom worked his jaw fruitlessly, and she said, "You may speak."

"What have you done to me?!"

"You are now forced to obey any order I give you, and you may not lie at any time. On the other hand, you can communicate but don't need to eat or sleep, so I suppose things are still looking better for you after a fashion."

Tom tried to buck out of her hand, but since he was just a skull, all he could do was vibrate angrily. "You transferred my Horcrux out of the Chalice! How did you do it?!"

"I guess I'm just a better dark witch than you are a Dark Lord," she said with a nonchalant shrug. Setting him on the desk in the basement, she prepared another purchase she had made the previous Saturday before she had headed to the apothecary. "Not to mention, it's Halloween, the best day of the year to work rituals that deal with souls. Now, answer this question of mine: how much do you know about dark magic?"

"I spent ten years traveling all over Europe and Asia," he ground out. "I know spells and rituals that would turn even your hair white. Put me in a normal human body, and maybe I won't demonstrate them on you."

She laughed at his impotent threat. "You do realize saying that only makes me  _less_  likely to set you loose on the world, right?" Unrolling the scroll she had bought, one enchanted to never run out of space, she set a DictaQuill on the unblemished surface. "I'm very glad you're so knowledgable, though; that information will serve me well in the future. Recite to this quill the location and protections around all your soul jars, what you called a  _'Horcrux'_. When you are finished with that, tell me everything you know about those rituals you learned, and then move on to the dark spells. Incantations, wand movements, histories, arithmantic analyses, the works. After that…" She thought for a moment and concluded, "After that, recite all the blackmail you have on all the Noble Houses. Throughout this period, you will be complete and concise; no tangents, no interjections, and definitely no lies. When you have completed those tasks, you will be silent until I order you otherwise. Begin."

For a moment she worried that the instructions were too complicated to properly bind him, but eventually Tom growled, "My first Horcrux I made from a journal I found after the Blitz…"

Jen smiled and left the house, the wards giving her an arctic embrace as she crossed the boundary.  _That was less troublesome than I feared_ , she thought while looking at the darkening sky.  _And what luck; I still have plenty of time to make it to the feast._

* * *

**That the parents of Hogwarts students didn't pull their kids out over the winter holidays after the basilisk started roaming the halls is something I've always had trouble understanding, especially considering how jumpy wizarding Britain as a whole was at the mere** _**suggestion** _ **that Voldemort might be back on the scene despite the Ministry's best efforts to bury the information. As for how the Minister knew about the attacks in the midst of this "media blackout" of sorts, my guess is that he was told about it by the perpetrator of the plot, Lucius.**

" **Tom the Skull" is a very obvious reference to** _ **The Dresden Files**_ **. And you thought I had Jen butcher Zabini just for the squick factor…**

**I do my best not to be a review whore, but I** _**really** _ **need input on what everyone thought about the ritual, especially compared to the one in chapter 22 of** _**Princess of the Blacks** _ **. I have two more rituals coming up in this story and at least one in the next, and I want to know if you'd prefer the clinical tone of last book or the more mystical portrayal I used here.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	22. The Dangers of Overreaching

**bissek:**  Some of the blackmail material will undoubtedly be "spoiled" by now, but considering how invested magical Britain was in bloodlines and familial honor, any information on who screwed whom over could  _still_  cause problems between various Houses, even 40 years later. As for how Kenneth could become a prefect after being involved in the 1991 brawl, his attitude improved significantly in the following two years (and there's the complication that the other choices were Fred and George, along with Lee Jordan, their partner-in-crime, so yes, "best of a bad lot", too).

 **Endgames:**  It isn't that Dumbledore  _won't_  use light magic so much as he  _can't_ ; just like black magic can only be used by the servants of the Dark Powers, white magic is only available to followers of the Light Powers. Unfortunately (sort of) most Light wizards in Britain totally reject the Old Ways, so they would never think to make a pact with a member of, as James put it, "a dead pantheon".

**To everyone who reviewed concerning the two rituals shown in-story so far, thank you very much. After looking at the various comments and suggestions, I think I'll go for a fusion of the two styles next time, using more colorful descriptions but keeping Jen's own attitude clinical. Again, I seriously do appreciate the input.**

**Disclaimer:**  Over six years of schooling, were only three Gryffindor prefects – the supposed enforcers of school policy – ever named or even really mentioned, two of whom were Harry's best friends and the other related to one of said friends? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 22  
** **The Dangers of Overreaching**

_Oh yes, this was truly such a_ ** _wonderful_** _idea_ , Hermione grumbled to herself as she turned down another corridor, her vine wand twisting as she again cast the Human-Revealing Spell; the broom cupboard doors in her sight refused to glow, a sign that there was no one inside.  _Mum and Dad were so_ ** _proud_** _that Professor McGonagall would choose me to be a prefect, and she went on and on about how noble a responsibility it was. In all that time, they neglected to mention that it was a boring and utterly thankless duty, or that it would be such an inconvenience_.

Even more than her parents or her head of house, her irritation was aimed at herself. After the past few years, filled as they were with Dark Lords and monsters and plots to kill her best friend, she was understandably relieved that for once her concerns would be focused on something as mundane as a position in the student body. Unfortunately, that temporary euphoria meant she did not consider the stress the badge would add to her already busy schedule; not just her schoolwork – though that was more difficult than anything she'd ever had before – but also the worries she had about the war that the magical world was soon to be embroiled in, especially as Danny, Ron, and she had been at the forefront of the fighting  _long_  before anyone other than Professor Dumbledore had known there even was one in the making.

 _And despite the fact that we've been involved since we were first-years, no one has the decency to even tell us what's going on!_ , she raged in silence. That more than anything was what  _really_  irritated her about the situation.  _They say we're too young, that we don't have the experience, and while I will admit that I personally have never been in a fight like that, that does_ ** _not_** _mean that we are foolish children whose ears have to be covered while the grown-ups talk. Twice Danny had to stand alone against You-Know-Who, and there is no reason to think that will change now. If anything, it'll just get worse!_

She sighed and shook her head; her parents had taught her to respect her elders, but the adults surrounding her were making that obligation a harder proposition than it should be. Professor Dumbledore was no longer speaking to Danny, despite telling the teen years previously that he was welcome in the older wizard's office any time; Professor Snape was still the nasty, condescending brute he had always been, ignoring the Headmaster's pronouncement that they needed to stand together; and Professor McGonagall had seemingly not learned a thing from the incident with the Philosopher's Stone and was instead disregarding any concern or complaint she made that did not immediately pertain to the actions of the other students. The only person who appeared to understand what was going on around them was Mr. Potter, as his hands-on Defense lessons had proved over the previous six weeks.

The thought of Danny's parents naturally made her mind turn to her own, and she forced her mental wanderings to a halt before they walked down that road again. She had started her first year so enthusiastic about her newfound talent and with plans to let her parents know absolutely  _everything_  about the school and her studies and her friends, but as the trio's adventures became less exciting and more dangerous, she wrote and talked about her life less and less, and so had slowly but surely begun drifting away from them. Looking back at the summer, filled as it was with her leaving early and returning late via the Knight Bus, she had been somewhat disturbed to discover that her parents, much as she loved them, were now more like polite strangers she shared the house with through July and August.

And the worst part about their deteriorating relationship? She had no clue how to fix it! She had tried several times to reconnect with her parents, her mum especially, but they just had so little in common now. As the years passed, she had increasingly realized that her future was bound inexorably to her identity as a witch. There was just…  _something_  about the magical world that made the Muggle side of life appear flat and washed out; every time she went home from Hogwarts, she was soon watching the calendar impatiently for the date to roll again to September first. She could no longer envision a life that did not feature magic. She had discussed her concern and feelings of displacement more than once with Mrs. Potter – whom, despite the woman's repeated requests, she did not yet feel comfortable calling 'Lily' – and while she was initially disheartened to hear that the older Muggleborn had no advice on the subject, having been in the same situation and ultimately choosing to abandon the last shreds of her pre-magic life for the Wizarding World, it did come as a minor balm to learn that everyone born to Muggle families eventually had to face that decision.

That guilt had given her a none-too-gentle push to accept the prefect badge when it was offered; Muggle boarding schools had prefects, too, so that meant it was the first subject in what felt like forever where her parents could do more than nod and pretend to understand. What she had not asked and McGonagall had not volunteered was just what was involved in that position in Hogwarts, and it was that ignorance that was now coming back to bite her. She should have realized when she could only vaguely remember any Gryffindor prefects other than Percy Weasley that the position was not nearly as glamorous as her dad recalled from his own schooling years.

No, in hindsight her acceptance was a definite mistake. She was not sure if it was the same in all the houses, but in the Lions' Den, official authority was something to flout – or, if not clever enough to avoid being caught, to rage against in the security of the common room – not something to be obeyed. Her being placed in a position of responsibility, therefore, did little but damage what few relationships she had managed to form outside Danny, Neville, and Ron. Lavender and Parvati constantly shot her suspicious looks, perhaps thinking she would use her status to force them to reveal the rumors and titbits they collected and fussed over like squirrels watching the winter's cache, while Fay Dunbar and Sophie Roper regarded her with what Hermione would swear on her magic were expressions of fear. And those were just her dormmates, girls she had lived with for four years, who should have known her better by now! The other Gryffindors were even worse.

Ron, strangely enough, had managed to avoid that kind of distrust, but the manner he used to achieve that feat were not ones she would  _ever_  consider using herself. Rather than do his duties, he instead had chosen to treat his status as if it were a joke, not once enforcing even common sense rules on the other Lions. Worse, he had begun to  _abuse_  his privileges, and on more than one occasion over the previous two months she had caught him confiscating some toy or sweet that he would then keep for himself. Even when she called him out on it, he behaved as if  _she_  were in the wrong for stopping him. Between this and the way he had acted the previous year when Danny's name came out of the Goblet of Fire, a new side of her friend had been revealed to her. It was just not a side she had ever expected, nor one she thought she could accept.

If the distrust of her fellow Gryffindors was bad, the increased scrutiny her head of house had her under was worse. She had thought that being given her badge meant Professor McGonagall  _trusted_  her, but in their regular meetings, the Scotswoman had revealed that she was now keeping a closer eye on Hermione's performance, and not just academically. It seemed that every week the older witch was criticizing her for not organizing some second-year study session or supervising a club meeting or preventing the Weasley twins from causing another ruckus.

On the Express, the Head Girl had stated that being made a prefect meant they had the professors' trust; that might be how it worked in Slytherin, but in Gryffindor, it seemed to be the exact opposite.

 _And no matter how much I try to explain to her that I don't have the time, she just keeps_ ** _pushing_** , the brunette griped.  _It's like she doesn't care that I have enough on my plate already. If nothing else, helping Danny all these years is the one thing that's prevented me from being first in our class, and even though that hopefully won't be a concern this year, my additional duties will take its place in keeping me from overtaking Su Li. If I have to do all these other things as well, it will all but ensure that Cornfoot passes me by!_

Descending the enormous staircase leading to the Great Hall, she groaned when she saw who was waiting for her next to the tall doors. As if this night, full as it was of uncomfortable refections, were not bad enough already!

Every night, the twenty-four prefects, including the Head Boy and Girl, patrolled in pairs to check for any students sneaking about out of bounds. Their rounds ended at one in the morning, but considering they had to start right after the ten o'clock curfew, that was still several hours that the two had to spend in each other's company. September had not been so bad, each house taking certain days of the month, but no one had mentioned prior to October first that the following months involved the houses performing  _joint_ patrols. Worse, it had paired Hufflepuff with Ravenclaw and Gryffindor with Slytherin; that had not gone well for her on either of her days, though she had to admit that it could have been worse. At least she had not been forced to deal with Malfoy.

Clearly, however, November had the Lions paired with the Ravens.

Steeling herself for the upcoming strain on her patience, she walked toward where Black was leaning against the wall. She had never been a fan of the girl; considering their first encounter had involved the Ravenclaw paralyzing her and Ron and threatening Danny, that was no great surprise. Watching Black throughout the Triwizard Tournament had not improved her opinion, and in her eyes, the other witch was as bad as many of the Slytherins in terms of demonstrating what was wrong with magical Britain. Arrogant, self-absorbed, and dismissive of those she saw as below her, Black was yet another individual who thought she was entitled to do what she wanted when she wanted and to hell with the consequences, all because of what her surname was. More than once she had wanted to repeat the satisfying experience of third-year and punch the girl in the face.

Before this school year began, Hermione's sole goal regarding Black, half-subconscious as it was, was just to ignore her. With the war with You-Know-Who officially beginning and the self-styled Dark Lord almost assuredly targeting Danny and his family again, she had far bigger matters to worry about than a schoolgirl who considered herself the end-all and be-all of the universe. When the Potters lost their home – and on Danny's  _birthday_ , no less! – she would have said it was even more important to focus her efforts on what  _actually_  mattered.

That was before she learned from the  _Daily Prophet_ that Black was her best friend's half-sister, and then from him directly that she was actually his  _full, twin_ sister.

 _Stronger evidence for Nurture over Nature, the world has never seen_ , had been her first thought upon hearing that confession.

Despite her thoughts on the witch in front of her, the bushy-maned Lion had to admit that something seemed…  _off_  with her at the moment. Black, normally garbed in dresses that were clearly meant to announce her adopted family's wealth or canvas trousers, was tonight wearing what Hermione's eyes insisted were Muggle jeans and a black T-shirt, though a closer inspection proved that the witch was also wearing her customary dragonhide boots and that the shirt was promoting the Weird Sisters' 1992 European Tour. The black-haired girl did not appear to notice her approach, her eyes narrowed as she read a letter in her hands.

 _Is that… paper?_ , Hermione could not help but wonder as she noticed how brightly white it was. Parchment always had a yellowish tinge to it, but for one of the purported poster-girls for Pureblood propaganda to be receiving what could only be mail from a Muggle…  _Then again, she_ ** _is_** _dressed like she's actually going to leave the magical world for something. Still odd, though._

A shadow above Black's shoulder shifted, and Hermione blinked in surprise when the patch of darkness turned out to be a raven. Wasn't that the other witch's familiar? She had never paid much attention to who had what pets, but it would at least explain  _how_  she received the letter, though not why.

Black glanced up at the bird's soft croak, and Hermione forced herself not to step backward as she felt like her very soul had been pierced by that purple glare. There was something  _wrong_  with Black's eyes; her gaze, usually haughty, was instead hard and cold. Almost… evil.

After a moment, the girl's expression softened minutely, and the brunette shook her lingering fear away. It must have been a trick of the light. Drawing her wand, the Ravenclaw tapped both the letter and the envelope and watched them burn to ash. "Thank you very much, sweetie. I'll handle it."

Hermione's eyebrows rose.  _Why in the world is she calling me_ 'sweetie' _?_

The bird on Black's shoulder flapped its wings, and the girl snorted in amused irritation as she turned her head to look at it. "You just want to come with me because you know you can beg some honey off Sarah." Her familiar croaked once, and despite not being a bird person, the Gryffindor almost heard a hint of derision in the sound. "Fine, fine. I'll bring you along. Gluttonous beast."

Burbling happily, the raven nibbled gently on the girl's ear and flapped away, and she shook her head in an almost fond manner. Black then looked up at Hermione and commented, "So, it looks like we get to be stuck with each other tonight."

 _'_ _Stuck with each other' is right_. "It appears so," she replied stiffly. "And don't think that I'll just ignore that you're not in class robes. We're prefects, and even when on night patrol—"

"We don't actually  _have_  to wear our robes," Black interrupted with a slight smirk. "Cedric was looking at the rules early in the year and found that out, so all of us were in casual clothes last month. If the Head Boy says there's no true prohibition from wearing what we want, I'll take that as fact."

 _Still doesn't make it proper_ , she thought to herself, though even she would admit that it was a weak protest. More than anything else, she knew it was just that she hated being proven wrong. Before she could provide any response, however, Black asked, "So how do you want to do this? Split up or stick together?"

This was a question, phrased in myriad ways, that Hermione had become rather familiar with over the year so far; some prefects preferred going around the empty hallways in pairs so they would have backup should something happen, while others wanted to cover twice as much ground at the same time. Recalling how narrowly she had avoided violence with some older Slytherins she had caught a couple of weeks earlier, she grudgingly answered, "We can walk together for a bit."

Black merely nodded and passed her on route up to the first floor, and she sighed silently before following the other girl. After a moment, she could no longer repress her curiosity. "What was that letter about?"

"Just a small matter that needs to be taken care of," was the vague response.

 ** _Small_** _matter? Doubtful_. "You actually care about a  _'mere Muggle's'_  problems?"

The Ravenclaw turned around and gave her a tiny smile that was  _anything_  but amicable. "I have a variety of concerns, exceedingly few of which are also yours. Any further questions?"

"I'm sure I can think of some," she shot back, her frustration mounting at the dismissive attitude the other witch was projecting.  _This_  was a perfect example of what she had against the girl Danny was unfortunate enough to share parents with; she was doing her best to be somewhat friendly, and instead she was getting brushed off. That actually provided a fantastic opening. "For instance, why do you treat your family like you do? They're worried about you, and you take every opportunity to treat them like trash!"

"I must admit that I have no idea what you're talking about," Black answered, cocking her head like an overgrown bird. "Neither my aunts nor my uncle, cousin, or Head of House have ever raised any objections about my behavior, and even if they did take exception with my actions, I do not understand why they would speak to  _you_  about it. To the best of my knowledge, none of them have ever even met you."

Hermione frowned at that, and it took her a moment to understand what the girl was saying.  _She's talking about the_ ** _Blacks_** _._  "I mean the Potters; your  _real_  family."

"Ah, I understand your mistake."  _Mistake?_ , she could not help but repeat to herself. "Despite the elder Potter's necessary role in my conception, he does not truly count as my family; I was raised with and as a Black, after all." The younger witch frowned thoughtfully. "Honestly, I would expect you of all people, as one of Potter the Younger's friends, to be  _happy_  that I'm not forcing myself into my sire's established life."

"I know the truth, Black. Danny told us on the Express." The dark-haired prefect waved for her to continue, her expression totally unconcerned. "We  _know_  that you two are siblings, that you're really James and Lily Potter's daughter."

"What an interesting delusion," Black murmured, and the small smirk she wore made Hermione lose the last of her grip on her patience.

"Why do you keep denying it?!" she shouted. "Don't you think your  _parents_  miss you? This whole summer they've been upset that you want nothing to do with them! After you lied to the  _Prophet_  about Lestrange being your mother, Mrs. Potter spent an entire week all but inconsolable! Why do you  _hate them_  so much?!"

She panted, her sudden spurt of fury spent. Here she was, grieving about what might be the inevitable loss of her relationship with her parents, and this  _selfish girl_ would rather make her own mother and father depressed with her absence because of some nebulous – likely unsubstantiated – grudge!

" _Hate them_? No, I just don't care. He is, for all intents and purposes, a glorified sperm-donor; she is a step-mother at most, and honestly I don't consider her that; and your friend and I simply share half our blood. Besides that, they are three people I only met last year and have no other connection to."

Hermione grit her teeth at that continued pack of lies and all but snarled, "I'll take the odd-numbered floors." She then stormed off onto the nearby landing, her indignation barely contained; Black simply shook her head and continued to the next floor.

Hard as it was to believe, she actually  _did_  agree with the other girl about one thing. Mr. Potter was currently working at Hogwarts while Mrs. Potter was house-hunting and brewing potions for an apothecary for some extra income, and both of them along with Danny were busy preparing for the upcoming war. They most certainly would be better off without also concerning themselves with the ungrateful brat they unfortunately had as their daughter.

* * *

" _Ennervate_."

Jen groaned as consciousness returned. "Why did I agree to this, again?"

"I believe it was originally so you wouldn't have to deal with your father more than absolutely necessary," Flitwick answered with a far-too-cheerful grin. "Look at the bright side: you  _are_  getting better."

"Yes, because lasting sixty seconds in a fight is  _such_  a grand achievement."

"Consistently lasting four times as long as you were first able when facing a professional duelist after only seven weeks of practice? It actually  _is_  a rather significant improvement." The quarter-goblin held out his hand and gave her a strong tug to help her to her feet. "That's especially true when you're still holding back."

The witch stared at him in shock; was he crazy or just blind? "You think I'm  _holding back_?"

"I don't think; I  _know_." At her continued confusion, he sighed. "Miss Black –  _Jen_  – credit me with at least a  _little_  intelligence. You yourself acknowledged that your family has a less than sterling reputation, and you did so with no regret and, in fact, not a little bit of  _pride_. If you do not know  _some_  dark magic, I will conjure a hat and eat it in front of you."

Her silence was confirmation enough.

"Not that I  _mind_  your restraint, understand," he added after a moment. "I appreciate that you like me enough not to wish me permanent injury."

 _Well, yes, that and_ … "I figured there was probably some ward on the school to detect the use of lethal magic. Not to mention, there'd be uncomfortable inquiries when you didn't show up to class tomorrow."

"You know, that's a good question," he replied thoughtfully. "I don't really know if there is such a ward or not. Still, we both know you have strategies that you could have used in a real-world scenario. Since the primary goal for these lessons is for you to be able to protect yourself should you find yourself in actual combat like last year, it would only behoove us for you to practice  _all_  the tricks in your repertoire."

Blinking in confusion, she summarized, "You  _want_  me to use dark magic against you, knowing that should I land a lucky hit on you, it could very easily lead to your demise. Is that what you're saying?"

"Correct." Her face apparently reflected her doubt, because he then elaborated, "Also, we both know that with You-Know-Who back from the dead, it is only a matter of time before he once again directs his gaze toward this school. I could use the practice, myself."

"You are part of Dumbledore's Order?" she asked in surprise. Cissy had diligently relayed the major points of each meeting to her while she was in school, and she had already known that the Charms professor was not a member that summer.

"No, but several other members of the faculty are, and I  _am_  capable of putting clues together." A small smile appeared on his face. "It helps that they aren't that good at keeping secrets. Still, that's neither here nor there. Are you able to go a third round tonight?"

"I think so," she answered slowly, a strategy starting to take shape in her mind. As she had learned only this year, there were more aspects of dark magic than just tainting spells with negative emotions. Some of the Dark Arts were merely skills that had been declared illegal for no good reason, after all.

It was time to see how well they worked in practice.

"Very good." The diminutive professor silently waved his wand around the room. "I've erected a paling that should prevent any detection wards, provided they exist, from picking up what we're doing in here. Begin when you're ready."

She almost shook her head at that; though Flitwick had reminded her more than once that a real opponent would not give her this luxury, he always gave her the first move due to her handicap of inexperience. Mentally running through what she wanted to do, she bounced lightly on her bare feet and widened her connection to the planet's reserve to close to her maximum. This was going to be difficult, but if it succeeded…

Jen whipped her left hand from behind her back, a haze of magic that had coalesced a moment earlier erupting into a pitch-black cloud and barreling toward the professor. She did not particular care if it arrived at him or not; it had blocked his sight of her, and that was all she wanted it for. Hopping to the left in case he decided to cast a quick stunning charm to end the battle early – it would not be the first time he tried that – she bent the surrounding light around her to render her invisible and immediately tangled that spell into the magic streaming out her body through her head. At the same time, she flung her right hand up and followed the gravity well she had cast into the air.

A whirlwind flashed into existence, scattering her distraction and allowing Flitwick to look about the room. "Invisibility again?" he taunted, spraying water around himself in hopes that it would reveal her location as it had the previous month. Knowing her time until he thought of checking the ceiling was limited, she immediately conjured half a dozen wolves and had them rush the professor. While he was busy dealing with that, she hastily flew to one corner.

She replaced the minions he had already cut down and transfigured their bodies into a conspiracy of ravens to reinforce the second wave of canines, then sketched a mannuz rune in the empty air in front of her. Imbuing it with her flying spell, she hung from the sparkling symbol and conjured a ring of fire around her professor. Part one of her plan was complete.

Now it was time for part two.

Taking a deep breath, she let her magic flow out her right hand into the room, half of her mind and her left hand occupied with maintaining a constant stream of living weapons to distract her opponent. With the rest of her attention, she carefully wove the strands of energy into a metaphysical 'cloth' of sorts, though no true fabric could billow out the way this one did. As her web grew larger, it drifted and folded as it began filling the room.

The notes she had received early that summer from Ingrid Eberhardt – the sheets of parchment pertaining to the German girl's Dark Arts class – were once again revealing themselves to be a goldmine of useful information, and as with runic casting, it was from them that Jen had discovered the strategy she was currently employing against Flitwick. The term for what she was doing, or at least what the translation charm placed upon it read, was  _'spell concentration'_. It was based on an observation that numerous combat spells had a minimum cost but lacked a corresponding maximum; too little magic meant that the spell would not work, but pumping more and more into it merely meant the effect was stronger, wider, or sometimes both.

What one clever Russian wizard had realized was that, if he could somehow  _store_  his magic for a time, he could potentially apply that theory to cast spells that were ridiculously powerful. At first he had tried using gemstones as batteries of a sort, a common strategy to reinforce simple wards, but the crystal lattice held on too tightly for him to pull all the power back quickly enough to affect his spell. After a few other false starts, he had finally discovered a way to keep his power in an invisible cloud, the air proving to have a much lower affinity for magic than the stones did. It was far more time-consuming, as one could not continuously store small trickles of energy over long stretches of time, but for anyone who had an opportunity to build up a charge…

Her mouth split in an unseen smile as she felt her magical fabric begin to fray at the edges; this must be the most power she could control at the moment, but even so it was a tremendous amount,  _far_  more than she would ever be able to channel at a given time. She immediately started the next step in the process: turning the cloud into the spell she wanted.

Flitwick turned his head around rapidly as small sparks of static arced and popped on the numerous bodies of her dead animals, and her hair, already drifting lazily in the air, stretched out farther. With a clenching of her fist, all the gathered power collapsed at the middle of the ceiling.

The only hint the professor had to what was happening was a loud crackle before a swarm of lightning bolts, each as wide as her waist, erupted from the sky and crashed into the ground where he stood.

Or, more accurately, where he  _had_  stood. In that brief instant between the sound and the spell, he had managed to dive out of the way, tumbling on the ground as he scrambled as far as possible away from ground zero. Jen was in no position to take advantage of the opportunity; her nerves shrieked in pain as the spell unexpectedly and forcibly drew even  _more_  power through her body, leaving her unable even to protect herself when Flitwick stabbed his wand at the roof and unleashed a blast of magic that shook the room.

That was the last thing she remembered until waking the next morning in the infirmary.

* * *

Filius looked around and sighed in relief when he spotted his student. Admittedly, Miss Black was hanging upside-down in midair, blood smeared on one side of her face and dripping sluggishly to the floor from where her head had slammed against the wall, but he could tell from the motion of her chest that she was still alive.

 _Which thankfully makes_ ** _two_** _of us_ , he thought, glancing at the five-foot-wide scorch mark sitting innocently on the ground. If he had been any slower…

 _Perhaps telling her to come at me with_ ** _everything_** _she had was a mistake_. That he had to end the bout with the Dragon's Roar Hex, a spell banned in dueling circles worldwide because of the tremendous shockwave that would hit everything else in the room, was telling in and of itself. Against attacks of that magnitude, any defense he threw up would have been laughable in its insufficiency.  _Then again, that strategy truly took advantage of all her strengths. She hid, kept me too busy to search for her, and then unleashed a spell that no one could have survived getting hit with._

He laughed joyously and shot a  _Finite_  at the girl, levitating her unconscious form before she could hit the ground. "Oh, my dear, you have no idea what you did today. If  _this_  is what you're truly capable of, I recommend you enjoy this upcoming week.

"Because starting next Tuesday, I'm going to push you harder than ever."

* * *

**I decide to give Hermione a scene of her own as an apology for ignoring her in the epilogue of** **_Faery Heroes_ ** **and all through this story, and she immediately starts moping. Seriously, I don't know what to do with this girl.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	23. First Date

**Jiggly Joe, Qinetiq, Selacha:**  I'm… sorry? In my defense, I'm posting a chapter a week between two completely different stories  _while_  juggling my third year of  _medical school_ ; I believe those are legitimate reasons for not posting 10k-word chapters every other day, much as I would like to.

 **Ev'rdeen:**  The prefects are  _expected_  to patrol until 1am, but considering the size of the school and the lack of supervision, if they look everywhere and get done early, there's nothing stopping them from taking a break for an hour or two (besides, of course, one of the professors spotting them loitering). In that light, splitting up finishes the actual  _work_  part earlier.

 **Thenchick:**  How much longer is the story going to be? Well, we're in mid/late-November  _now_ , and this book runs to mid-June, so… We've still got a while to go.

 **ThePink1:**  First of all, I truly do enjoy reading your reviews; they put such a  _smile_  on my face. Second, the biggest problem with having Jen reveal some of the details of her past to Hermione is that Hermione has no reason to  _believe_  her. One of the bushy brunette's biggest flaws in canon was that it was  _very_  hard (i.e., nearly impossible) to change her mind one she had decided something, so when Jen's comments wouldn't mesh with her mental image of the heiress, she'd toss them in a box and subsequently ignore them.

**For everyone who doesn't have me on their author alerts, I posted a couple of little one-shots since the last update: the first on Halloween and appropriately themed, and the second last Monday. Fair warning, they are both rather depressing.**

**Disclaimer:**  Were the inhabitants of Hogsmeade supposedly terrified of the "ghosts" haunting the Shrieking Shack, even though as wizards and witches they should have been familiar enough with spirits not to be concerned overmuch by the antics of ghosts or ghouls? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 23  
** **First Date**

"I still think the French should have used Warming Charms."

"Except if they did that, the guards would have been on them as soon as they crossed the border. They had to bypass the sensors to get to the stronghold."

"Better to fight early with their entire force than sneak up on their destination with only a fifth of their men left. What do you think, Jen?"

"Hmm?" Jen glanced behind her to find Morag and Padma watching her unabashedly. "I think they should have learned from Napoleon's mistake a decade earlier: never attack Russia in the middle of winter."

"It wasn't  _Russia_  as a whole; it was a Dark Lord who happened to make his lair… and you don't care in the slightest, do you?" Luna asked with a sigh.

She sighed as well before returning her attention to the throng of students sharing the corridor with her and her friends. "Whatever could have given you  _that_ idea?"

"Look, we all know you're not happy about your—" Jen shot the Scottish girl a sharp glance, and Morag quickly reworked her phrasing. "About Potter teaching here, but you have to admit that he's not half-bad at strategy."

"I don't  _have_  to admit  _anything_."

"What would it take for you to at least appreciate the DADA class this year? Short of him no longer being the professor?" Padma pressed.

"Him not making cow eyes at me the whole period." The other girls grimaced at that disturbing – but unfortunately not inaccurate – description. "And have you considered that the bigger reason I'm not interested in the class this year might be because I don't find it  _relevant_? Unless the strategies used by the  _Bataillon de Chevaliers_  in the early nineteenth century is on the OWLs, I don't particularly care."

" _Right_." Luna disbelief was palpable, and the other Ravenclaw girls nodded in agreement.

The dark-haired witch shook her head in disappointment; she truly  _did_  think Potter senior had chosen a rather poor topic to teach, and that had nothing to do with their blood relation. Perhaps her friends' opinions were being colored by the man's evening tutoring sessions, but she was sure that she had the better deal on that score, too.

A volunteer vigilante against a trained, professional duelist? The choice was obvious.

"Hey, Jen!"

She searched out the source of the call with her sonar and smiled when she found him walking toward them. "Kenneth, what a pleasant surprise. What brings you out this way? I thought you had Charms on Monday afternoons."

"Normally I do, but several of us were given special permission to join the sixth-year Care class today instead." She cocked her head in curious confusion, and he explained, "Hagrid returned weekend before last, as I'm sure Tracey told you, but at some point while he was on sabbatical he arranged to have a few specimens of one of his more  _interesting_  beasties loaned to him for a few hours."

"Juvenile Nemean lions," the blond boy standing just behind him added, pulling up the sleeves of his red-trimmed robes to show the still-oozing scratches littering his forearms.

" _Nemean_   _lions_? As in the ten-foot lions whose pelts are invulnerable to any piercing or slashing weapon?" Padma scrubbed her face with her hands. "On the one hand, I see why he would want to show them to you; they're said to be beautiful animals, and you can't find them anywhere outside southern Greece. On the other, there's a  _reason_  they are considered class-five creatures. I once read that they're also resistant to magic, too, which just makes them even more dangerous."

Luna shook her head. "They only develop magical resistance when they reach seven or eight years of age, so these were too young to worry about that. And even then, it's only against  _direct_  damage; handlers can use… Smothering Curses, I think, on them just fine. What  _I_  want to know is how he got them to begin with."

"I'd love to know that, too, if only so we could keep it from ever happening again," Kenneth complained.

The unnamed Gryffindor boy stuck out his hand. "I don't believe we have ever been properly introduced. Cormac McLaggen."

"Jen Black," she replied, offering her own hand and quirking one brow when McLaggen raised her knuckles to his lips. It was a good attempt, but it did not touch the old-fashioned courtesy Viktor had so easily displayed.

"It's a pleasure." Interestingly, his charming smile was totally false. "Actually, I must confess that part of the reason we've never met is that I was… Well, nervous."

She fought to keep her skepticism from leaking into her voice. "Really?"

"I know, it doesn't seem in character, does it?" he laughed lightly. "Would you allow me to make up for it and do me the great honor of accompanying me to Hosmeade this weekend?"

 _What are you up to?_  She flicked her probes out and nearly frowned when she felt the resistance of Occlumency barriers.  _To break in or leave it alone… or maybe to try a third strategy?_  Resting her probes against the shields, she morphed her mental image of them from thin threads tipped with metal barbs to something a little more… gelatinous.

Rather than  _break_  through, she would have them  _seep_ through.

The main downside to this strategy, beyond that she was unsure that it would work in the first place, was that she had to keep him close by, but from what she had already seen, that should not be too difficult. "Are you… asking me on a date?"

Her friends switched their incredulous stares from McLaggen to her upon hearing her breathy voice, and the boy shot her a confident smile. "If that is what the lady wishes."

"I don't know… I mean, we've only just met. How do I know that you'll be a gentleman?"

"Well, I  _am_  a Gryffindor. Chivalry is a given with us," he answered, drifting a step closer.

 _As is an inability to lie convincingly_. Her probes finished oozing through his shields, and she got a good look at his plan.  _Then again, never judge a book by its cover. How_ ** _clever_** _, little kitty. But who else is going to show; that's the_ ** _real_** _question_. "That  _is_  true," she allowed, a faint smile growing on her face. "Very well. I would love to go with you."

"Then I will see you again on Saturday. I guarantee you will have a wonderful time."

McLaggen gave her a bow and turned to depart; once he had been swallowed by the crowd, she muttered, " _'Wonderful'_. Is  _that_  what you call it?"

"Jen!" Luna hissed, grabbing hold of her arm. "What was  _that_?"

"Unless I'm very much mistaken, that was me getting a date."

"With  _Cormac McLaggen_?" Morag shook her head. "That's a  _bad_ idea. He's a right prat from everything I heard about him."

Padma nodded in agreement. "And Parvati told me that's he's kind of…  _pushy_  with girls. Do you really want to risk that?"

"Now  _that_  I know nothing about," interjected Kenneth, "but the rest is definitely true. Makes me feel sorry for anyone who has to share a room with him."

"Don't worry. I highly doubt my virtue will be in any danger," she replied in a dry voice, the others in the know about that aspect of her past looking away in embarrassment. "And it isn't like I'll have my heart broken or something. I'm not even interested in him."

Luna loosened the stranglehold she had on Jen's arm at that comment, and Kenneth asked, "Then why agree at all?"

 _Because it'd just be_ ** _rude_** _to make all that effort go to waste_. The dark witch smirked. "Call it curiosity."

* * *

Cormac peered around at the groups of students making their way to Hogsmeade, trying and failing to spot his 'date' for the day. Where was the little bitch?

"Been waiting long?" He jumped and wheeled around to find Black standing not a foot away and looking up innocently at him. She shrugged her long, white coat onto her shoulders, silver bracelets jingling merrily on her left arm. "Sorry about that; I got held up."

"That's fine," he replied, not sneering at her for wasting his time as he normally would. "Shall we?"

If there was one benefit to waiting as long as he had, it was now that most of the others had already departed, it was far easier to find a private carriage. They slid inside, the girl choosing to nestle close to his side rather than take the other bench. He glanced over at her, but before he could remark on her sudden smirk, she flicked her fingers at his face—

"Cormac? We're here."

The Gryffindor snorted and shook the fogginess out of his head; had he fallen asleep, of all things? Running the girl off now would not bode well for the finale he had planned. "I hope I didn't ignore you too much."

"Don't worry about me. You were only out of it for a few minutes."

Black held her hand out, as if she believed  _he_  needed  _her_  help. Pushing himself to his feet on his own, he stepped out of the carriage and looked around. "Where do you want to go first, love?"

The girl giggled like every other stupid bint, but what else could he really expect? "Oh, I don't know. Maybe we could just start on this end of town and make our way inward?"

"All right, then." She hooked her arm through his and leaned in, brushing one breast against him in the process.  _But if anyone_ ** _dares_** _to take her up on her 'offer', she'd scream rape_ , he thought disparagingly. "Now that I think about it, I  _do_  need some more quills."

"We'll make sure we stop in Scrivenshaft's, then. Ooh, I didn't even know this shop existed! Let's go here first!"

The impatient witch immediately tugged him through a nearby door and into… a  _junk store_? Looking about at the broken and useless litter surrounding them, he could only demand, " _Why_?"

"I still need to find Christmas gifts for some people," came the near-useless answer, Black's head and hands buried in a pile of rubbish.

"You give gifts to people you don't like?"  _Then again, if her family has more gold than Midas, what do they care if their debutante squanders it?_

She laughed lightly, the sound huskier than her earlier high-pitched giggle. "You've never twisted something useless into a new form it was never meant to have? Trust me, it's quite entertaining, and sometimes the results are worth the effort." She pounced on another bin. "And even if I can't fix up what I find as well as the  _last_  thing I worked on, I can always buy them something else."

They probably spent an hour inside, the brat looking through every nook and corner for more junk. Just as he began suspecting that she might be doing this solely to waste his time – which would, in hindsight, not be a terrible surprise; what importance would someone like  _her_  ever place on  _his_  time? – she dumped her scrap onto the counter and skipped over to him. "I didn't bring my coin purse."

 _She. Is. Not_ … "And you expect  _me_  to pay for all this?"

"Well, you  _did_  invite me on this date," she pointed out. "Isn't it customary for a gentleman to cover a lady's expenses?"

"It's also normal for a lady to restrain herself." Did she think she could take advantage of him like she did all the other men she  _graciously permitted_  to escort her to Hogsmeade?

She leaned in, her purple eyes glittering strangely. "Won't you  _please_  cover this for me?"

At that entreaty, his money pouch came out before he was even aware of what he was doing. He groaned and stepped up to the entirely too amused shopkeep. "How much?"

"Thank you," Black crooned once they were outside as she shrank the bag with all her purchases and stuffed it into the slim burgundy purse she had, to his utter disbelief, just pulled out of an inside pocket of her dragonhide duster.

"You had that on you the whole time," he ground out, "and  _still_  said you didn't have money?"

"But I don't," she denied. "I forgot to grab any coins before I left my dorm." Taking another look at his furious expression, she said with a lopsided smile, "Do you want me to make it up to you?"

"That would be  _much_  appreciated."

Her smile never left as she backed into the alley next to the secondhand store, and when he did not immediately follow, she crooked one finger. A tingle passed over his skin when he stepped out of view of the road, but he had no time to think on that before his arms were occupied by the witch who seemed determined to rip his tongue out with her own. Pulling back from the kiss, the slag grinned saucily before tugging on the folds of her robe. The heavy layers of cloth and leather fell to the ground, and she ran her hands invitingly over her naked body—

Pulling back from the kiss, the girl shot him a teasing wink, though her eyes looked less stormy and smoky than they had immediately before.

"That's it?" he protested. After acting like she was going to give him a real prize, she left it at only a couple of seconds of snogging? Then again, what could he really expect from some spoiled rich brat?

And why did the back of his head hurt?

"Oh, there's a  _lot_  more where that came from if you play your cards right." He felt his skull with his fingers, and she noticed his involuntary wince. "Did I bang your head on the wall? I'm so sorry. Sometimes I move a little too fast and forget that plans don't always work out the way I expect."

He muttered, "Yeah, sure." That  _could_  explain the new lump, but not his sore ribs or the faint ache in his left shoulder.

"Shall we continue?" she asked with a wave toward the street.

The rest of the morning, much to his disgust, passed not too differently from their first stop. The bookstore, Scrivenshaft's, Honeyduke's… At each one, Black would look up at him with pouty lips and beg for him to pay for all her things. He was also quickly growing to hate the word  _'please_ '; whenever she said it, he felt his resolve crumble inexplicably before he could even think to shore it up.

 _At least she didn't insist we stop at Madam Puddifoot's_ , he consoled himself as they left the Three Broomsticks after a quick lunch.  _I wouldn't have been able to stand it_. "Any other stops you want to make?"

She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Not that I can think of. What about you? Anything you want to do?"

 _End this farce_. "Tell me, have you ever visited the Shrieking Shack?"

"Oh, no," she denied with a shake of her head. "The most haunted house in Britain? I'd be too scared to go near it."

"That's too bad. You see, I heard a rumor that it's possible to get inside and look around. No one else I know has ever done that." She looked a little curious at that despite her fear, and he added, "You wouldn't have to worry about a thing. I can protect you."

"My brave Lion," she cooed, draping herself over his shoulder. Cormac had to fight his disgust at her simpering possessiveness. "If you'll make sure nothing eats me or anything like that, I suppose we can go. I apologize in advance for hurting your hand."

He guided her up the hill to the ramshackle cabin, his free hand fumbling in his pocket for the charmed key he had been given that morning. The bronze key turned easily in the keyhole, and the girl traipsed into the mostly demolished sitting room with only the slightest prompting. A nasty smile grew on his face as he pulled the door closed; without a way to release the charmed latch, she would have to find an alternate escape.

"I have to admit, I'm less scared than I expected to be," she called over her shoulder.

" _Accio_." The girl's dark wand leapt out of her still-open purse, and she slowly turned around. "How about now?"

"Or now?" Michaels added, the sixth-year Hufflepuff flanked by two of his housemates as he stepped out of the shadows.

"Well, well, whatever could be the reason for  _this_?" Cormac frowned; Black did not look as terrified as a lone girl surrounded by four wizards and without her wand should. "If I didn't know better, I'd think we were about to have a big problem."

Six others made themselves know, and the eight wizards and two witches formed a loose circle around the girl. Michaels explained, "Oh, there's a problem, all right. The problem is that a foul monster like  _you_  has been allowed to walk around unchecked. Well, that's about to change."

"Now I understand," Black said softly, as if she were speaking to herself. Louder, she said, "All of you are people who lost family to my mother's wand, aren't you?"

"My aunt, his father,  _both_  her parents. It's time  _someone_  paid for what she did," the lone Slytherin of the circle confirmed, pointing out a few other members. Their group was primarily Gryffindors, along with the one Snake and the three Badgers, but Cormac knew that was only to be expected. The entirety of Ravenclaw and the rest of Hufflepuff house were too cowardly to take care of this pompous runt, and the Slytherins wouldn't even  _want_  to hurt the spawn of one of their heroes.

"Foolish," Black remarked calmly, which did nothing to make her any friends among the group. She then turned to gaze at her 'date'. "But you're involved with this for a different reason, aren't you?"

"Why I want you to be put in your place is irrelevant," he snapped back.

Anderson, one of his dormmates, shot him a sharp glance. "You said you had lost somebody, too."

"That's not important right now!"

"I'm afraid I must disagree with that," interjected the Dark witch. "Your…  _collaborators_  deserve to know the truth, don't you think? Your grudge against me is  _personal_. I haven't done anything to you this year, so it must be from last year. The Triwizard Tournament." She smirked. "Were you mad that it was a witch and not a fellow misogynistic cur who was chosen, or is this all due to simple jealousy that the junior champion wasn't  _you_?"

Before he could deny her allegations – however true they were – she asked the room at large, "But what I  _really_  want to know is this: I've been right here for the past two and a half months. I never once hid or used anyone else as a proxy. Why are you only just now getting around to attacking me?"

"We wanted to make sure everything was set up right," snarled the Gryffindor witch directly behind her, which only made the fifth-year give the other girl a quick look over her shoulder before turning back to him.

"Ah, so it took you that long to work up the courage to face me. Not that I blame you in the slightest," Black added quickly, "because, after all, ten against one is actually fairly bad odds."

The  _'…for you'_  went unsaid, but Cormac could still hear it as though she had whispered it in his ear. "You think you're so tough?!" he demanded, waving the sliver of wood he had stolen away from her. "You don't have your wand, Black!"

Her reaction surprised him. She  _laughed_. "Oh dear, such a terrible situation for me to be in. Whatever shall I do?" They all stared at her baseless confidence, and then she tugged the left sleeve of her coat up to reveal the ten silver bangles encircling her arm.

The vengeance-driven teens barely had time to curse in their minds before she jerked her arm downward.

Cormac fell to the ground, the Shrieking Shack shaking as if two colonies of angry giants were duking it out underneath the floor and doing all they could to uproot the building by its very foundation. The air was filled with loud snaps and crunches, and he looked up only to be filled with absolute terror when a section of the wall landed just inches away from his face, the already partially-demolished building proving extremely vulnerable to the earthquake Black had conjured up. Someone screamed when another chunk of wood and plaster fell directly on top of him, and that proved to be the end of the group's collective courage.

After several more seconds, the shuddering earth stilled. " _That_  should get my point across, I think," the Dark witch said airily. Cormac felt something moving in his right hand, and a moment later her wand leapt out of his grasp and into her waiting palm. "I'll be taking that back. Now, I'm strangely enough  _not_  as"—she chuckled—" _black_  as I'm painted, pun most certainly intended, so I'm actually going to give all of you a pass on your little  _error in judgement_. This is your one chance for lenience, however; I will remember all of you, and if you try something like this again, I will not be  _nearly_  so merciful."

No one said a word.

"I'm glad we understand each other," she continued, flicking her wand and vanishing the door. That was definitely  _one_  way to get around the locking charm. "McLaggen, thank you for the date, but I have to say that I don't think we'll have another. It's not me, it's you, you know?  _Orevwa_."

Black had scarcely left the Shack before the witch from the Hufflepuff contingent clawed her way out of the rubble and stumbled to the long-shattered window. His eyes widened when she stuck her wand through the opening. "What are you doing?!"

"That bitch's mother killed my parents," the stupid bint answered, a crazed look in her eyes. "Someone has to pay for that.  _Quaero_."

Peering through a hole in the outermost wall of the building, one made wider by recent events, Cormac could only watch wide-eyed as the searing white Piercing Hex lanced at Black's head before shattering on a shield that flashed into existence. The girl turned around slowly to look at them, and what was truly disturbing was the sick smile she graced them with. She flicked her hand toward the ground once again.

And this time, the entire ceiling came crashing down.

* * *

Following Flitwick to the Headmaster's office immediately after dinner, Jen raised an eyebrow at the assembled faculty waiting inside. Dumbledore was only to be expected, as were McGonagall, Sprout, and Snape as the heads of house for the  _'affected parties'_ , but for the life of her she could not understand why the other two were there. "I'm starting to wonder if I need to contact a barrister," she commented, only somewhat in jest. "And no offense meant, but why are Professors Umbridge and Potter present?"

"Considering your actions today, it was decided that you should have your proper guardian present," was Dumbledore's response.

 _Is he_ ** _still_** _on about me going back to the Potters?_ , she wondered.  _And he didn't answer me about Umbridge, which means something happened that left him without a choice in the matter. An extension of her authority, perhaps, or maybe a conversation with Fudge? He probably means to use my well known dislike for Potter to distract me_.

"If you think that's a good idea, then who am I to argue?"

Most of the professors looked at her in surprise at that blasé agreement, though both Flitwick and Dumbledore shot her suspicious glances and Potter smiled brightly. The old wizard cleared his throat. "I don't think I need to explain how much trouble you are in right now, Miss Black. You injured ten other students, destroyed a valuable landmark, and if that weren't enough, you then chose not to inform anyone of their whereabouts, which required a search party to be formed to find them when they did not return this afternoon."

Jen did not even glance at the old goat, instead picking a few pieces of lint off her black school robes.

"Under  _normal_  circumstances, this could be grounds for suspension or even expulsion, but you are not a normal student. You are a  _prefect_ ; you are held to a higher standard than the others in your class, and to hear that you have behaved like you did today is a very clear sign that you receiving your badge was a mistake."

Flitwick stiffened beside her, but she merely held out one hand to examine her nails.

" _Miss Black_ , have you listened to one word I've said?!"

She looked up at Dumbledore then, her eyes forced wider than normal. "Oh, are we having our conversation now? I thought you said we were still awaiting the arrival of Lord Black."

The heads of both Ravenclaw and Slytherin shook their heads at that, and to one side, Umbridge smiled faintly. The headmaster snarled, "Twenty points from Ravenclaw for your  _cheek_ , Miss Black. You know perfectly well I was talking about your father a minute ago."

"But you never said anything about my sire, sir. You said I needed to have my  _'proper guardian'_  present, and that is my Head of House." Jen was sorely tempted to toss out another barb, but at this moment she was still within the bounds of courtesy. After losing her temper at the ten idiots who tried to ambush her and razing the innards of the Shrieking Shack – which in hindsight had been a very poor decision, even if it had been  _so_  satisfying – she needed to play this part of the game more conservatively, and that meant  _not_ coming across as antagonistic.

Dumbledore looked only a few steps from whipping out his wand and cursing her, though she knew he would not do such a thing – at least not in front of witnesses – and so it was McGonagall who demanded, "What do you have to say for your atrocious actions this afternoon, then?"

"What I have to say? I say that my actions were perfectly acceptable in light of the situation that took place, and it's a shock that I and not my assailants am the one being interrogated."

"Their actions are not under review here," Dumbledore snapped. "Yours, however,  _are_. It was your spell that damaged a valuable piece of history—"

" _'Valuable piece of history_ '? The Shrieking Shack's reputation as a 'haunted' locale only started in '71, and the screams and howls – which sounded more  _animal_ than spirit, if you know what I mean – stopped four and a half years later, never to return." She grinned mirthlessly. "The mystique of that particular place is rather diminished when you personally know someone who was involved in the underlying situation. Besides, the actions of those ten  _should_  be part of the discussion. After all, it is  _their_  choice to lay in wait to attack me from the shadows that changes my own actions from assault to  _self-defense_. I would say that makes the events just before our conflict  _extraordinarily_  germane to this conversation."

"You raise a good point, Miss Black," Umbridge agreed before anyone else could get a word in edgewise. "However, there are still a few things that do not make sense to me. Mr. McLaggen claimed to have summoned your wand out of your possession, but you were still able to shake the Shack enough to damage the walls?"

"Secondary focus. I noticed how useful they were in the Tournament last year, so I keep a couple on me whenever I leave the security of the castle"—though that might be laying it on a bit thick, considering the horror stories her friends had told her about just how  _safe_  the school really was—"especially when I am in the presence of someone I have only met once. That decision certainly proved to be the right one today."

"But that doesn't answer the question I find most pressing," Sprout said in a stern tone. "You had left the building, and while I agree they were in the wrong to try to harm you, the conflict had already been resolved when you turned around and used that spell on the Shack again. There was  _no_   _reason_  to do such a thing."

"True, provided you discount that once I was outside, someone aimed a Piercing Hex at my  _head_  while I had my back turned." The Herbology professor's face paled; presumably, this little titbit was news to her. "If that had hit, I would almost certainly be dead. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe I'm allowed to use lethal force to defend myself from an  _attempted murder_."

Casting her eyes around the faculty, Jen was surprised by the variety of expressions on their faces. Flitwick was gratifyingly scowling at the thought, and Snape's face was mottled with fury, though he had dropped his arms from where they had been crossed over his chest and his glare was now directed at the door behind her rather than her person. Umbridge's gaze was, worryingly enough,  _intrigued_. McGonagall and Sprout both had some remnants of their previous distemper, but more than anything they now looked lost and confused.  _Looks like almost_ ** _no one_** _knew about that little wrinkle_.

The  _'almost'_  in question was due to the visages of Potter and Dumbledore. The younger wizard was unhappy for sure, but she could neither see nor feel any sign of surprise from him, and the glint in his eye as he watched her was closer to disappointment. The headmaster, out of everyone, had not reacted in the slightest, and now he muttered in the subdued silence, "And you thought that was grounds to attempt claiming an eye for an eye? Vengeance does nothing but cause more damage."

"I was merely thinking that I didn't want to give whomever it was the chance to try again, and this time potentially succeed. Once again, I'm surprised how your issue seems to be with me rather than the people truly responsible. It's almost as if you intend to protect the perpetrators and persecute the victims."

 _What_ ** _is_** _the reason for his grudge against me?_ , she wondered.  _This isn't the first time he's tried to go after me specifically; he has displayed hatred, or at least strong distaste, toward me ever since the Gryffindor Task. Is it that his involvement with the Potters and his knowledge of my original parentage causes him to be offended, like Sirius and Cissy think?_

 _Wait. Cissy also said that he knew about and was the first to mention the existence of a prophecy. The same prophecy that names Danny and me as the only people capable of defeating Voldemort. How did it go, again?_ 'A child, raised in light… another, knowing only darkness' _, or something like that? If he heard it and knew about the Potters having twins…_

She could have laughed at the realization.  _Are all his problems with me because he assumed – correctly, I must admit – that I was a dark witch, based entirely on the contents of a little glass ball in the Department of Mysteries? With his famous position on the_ 'dreaded corruption' _that comes from dark magic, it must torment him to know that, should his Golden Boy fail in his destined task, he'll have to rely on someone like_ ** _me_** _to get rid of the greater evil._

"Whether or not you think your actions were justified does not change the fact that you sent all ten of them to the hospital wing and, as you admitted to knowingly using lethal force, could have killed them. Such blatant disregard for the safety of others can never be tolerated." He held out his hand. "I will need the foci you used today and your prefect badge, Miss Black."

Flitwick stood on the cushion of his chair, giving himself another foot or so of height and putting him at eye-level with the Headmaster. "I don't think so. Who is or is not a prefect lies  _solely_  with that student's head of house, and after hearing these  _previously_ _unmentioned_  facts, I fully support Miss Black's actions this afternoon. I will most certainly not take away her well-deserved position."

"Filius, be reasonable!"

"No,  _you_  be reasonable! I don't know what else is going on that you're not telling us, but I will  _not_  allow this travesty to continue! She did not start this; all she did was defend herself. And what plans do you have to punish those who are  _actually_  guilty?"

The old man straightened in his chair. "Those students are currently in the hospital wing having ribs and hips and spines repaired or, in some cases, outright vanished and regrown. That is punishment enough."

"So you're doing nothing," Jen translated. "And I distinctly recall my aunt informing you that I had my Head of House's approval to use any secondary focus I deemed necessary."

"During the  _Triwizard Tournament_ ," came Dumbledore's rebuttal. "That blanket permission was never meant to extend to the next school year."

"I disagree with that, as I'm sure would  _she_ , but it's irrelevant anyway. I don't have them anymore."

The headmaster blinked in surprise at that admission before narrowing his gaze suspiciously. "So just where are they?"

 _Vanished back to whence I conjured them_. "I gave them to my raven to carry back to London. I remember what you did to the  _last_  focus of the family's you got your hands on, and we don't want you destroying any  _more_ of our valuables," she answered with a thin, mocking smile.

"Nevertheless, you will still serve detention every night after dinner for the next four months with Professor Potter," the manipulative old bastard ground out.

" _No_."  ** _Bollocks_** _to keeping my temper under control_. "I have already  _clearly_  established how my actions were justified under the circumstances. If you really want to continue this utter  _farce_ , I will have no choice but to notify the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol concerning a few people who committed assault, conspiracy to commit thereof, and attempted murder." Jen stood and leaned over the desk so she could stare directly into Dumbledore's eyes, nearly begging him to try reading her mind as he had done the previous year. She whispered, "And if I do that, your attempts to deflect blame could very  _easily_  be twisted into you being an accessory after the fact.

"I'm more than willing to walk down that road. Are  _you_?"

 _I guess he hadn't thought all this through_ , she noted to herself when the elderly wizard's eyes widened at the tail end of her threat.  _He'd probably be able to escape jail time, but his reputation would take a truly_ ** _massive_** _hit. He might even be voted out as Chief Warlock, and that scandal would likely see a Neutral or even a Dark candidate attain the position, which would be a disaster for the Light bloc. Dumbledore is the main force that's kept them in power for the last forty-odd years_.

Flitwick grabbed a handful of her robes and pulled her back. "I think that's everything that needs to be said, Albus. Now, are you going to attempt to enforce that ridiculous punishment you just pronounced, or is this discourse complete?"

Dumbledore slumped into his chair and waved one hand tiredly. "Just go. But Miss Black?" She and the Charms professor turned around from where the quarter-goblin had his hand on the doorknob. "If you ever hurt another student like you did today, you  _will_  be facing expulsion. Keep that in mind."

* * *

**What, you expected when you saw the title that this chapter was going to be about Jen and Luna? Perish the thought.**

**One could argue about "persecuting the victims", but what is probably Dumbledore's greatest impact on the events of canon is that he defined himself by "protecting the perpetrators", at the very least at the _expense_  of the victims. Every time he refused to make someone answer for the crimes they committed in the name of  _redemption_ , he allowed the evil in magical Britain to fester a little more.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	24. Unwarranted Intrusions

**weasel AKA boundedsumo:**  Anyone who read my  _Misunderstandings_  stories already knows this, but I don't have any problems with people writing spin-offs of my stuff; that would, I think, be an  _extremely_ hypocritical stance to take. If anything, I see it as a great compliment. So long as proper credit is given in an AN, it's all good.

 **Um the Muse:**  I couldn't really get into why Jen went along with the plot in-chapter without revealing the secret early, but I tried to hint at it. She agreed to McLaggen's 'date' because she knew he was working with several other students but couldn't find out in the brief amount of time she had in his head  _who they were_. So, by triggering the trap voluntarily, she was able to identify several of her enemies who would otherwise stay in the shadows.

**Uh, does a story this dark and disturbing in general need specific warnings for particularly bad chapters? I don't know, so to be on the safe side… WARNING! Off-screen sexual abuse and pedophilia are present in this chapter. Read at your own peril.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did anyone in British Social Services ever wonder why a dozen or so eleven-year-olds suddenly fell off the grid every year? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 24  
** **Unwarranted Intrusions**

It was no surprise to anyone anymore that Jen was among the first students to leave the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom when the last bell of the day rang. December had arrived, and by this point her ongoing feud with Potter Senior, cold as their conflict was, was already considered  _'old news'_.

Luna immediately attaching herself to Jen's left arm like a limpet was relatively new, though.

"Aren't you tired of that by now?" she sighed. Oh, she understood the  _motivation_  for the blonde's recent behavior perfectly; after revealing the previous year that today was the anniversary of her  _attack_  in the cold, unforgiving streets of London, it was no surprise that they were treating her as if she were made from spun glass. Padma and Morag had taken it upon themselves to run interference for her – actually making the situation  _more_  conspicuous in the process, though she could not find it in her heart to tell them to knock it off – while the youngest of their retinue had chosen to treat her like a giant stuffed animal missing its daily allotment of hugs. Tracey, Susan, Justin, and Kenneth, not being Ravenclaws and therefore not having the ability to follow her like bodyguards all over the school, had nonetheless kept eyes on her while in the Great Hall for breakfast and lunch and whenever they happened to pass each other in the halls.

She would have to ask them not to do this again… but maybe tomorrow. Right now she was actually rather appreciative of their efforts.

It was Morag's brogue that shook her from her reverie. "Just shove off, Potter."

 _Oh, bloody hell. Of_ ** _course_** _this would happen today_.

Jen turned around and sighed at the sight. The Scot was several paces behind, Padma approaching to provide backup, facing off against Potter with Weasley and Granger taking positions at his flanks. The rest of the combined Ravenclaw–Gryffindor had slowed to a halt so they would not miss the seemingly inevitable exchange of words or perhaps even blows.

 _It surely couldn't be_ ** _that_** _hard to get away with killing the three of them, could it? I'd just need to stun everybody and rewrite their memories so they think Potter and his cronies wandered off never to be seen again. And confound all the portraits, vanish the bodies, manufacture evidence that there was no foul play involved in their disappearances…_  Sighing again as she decided her  _preferred_  course of action unfortunately posed far too many opportunities for something to go horribly wrong, she pulled her arm out of Luna's grasp, patting the girl on the hand to cut off her distressed whine, and waded into the stand-off. "I hope there isn't a problem here."

"No problem," Potter agreed. His eyes roved over the assembled crowd while he paused to choose his words. "We just came over to have a short conversation."

 _Truly? How odd_. She quirked one eyebrow, curious despite herself. "Corridors really aren't the place for conversation, short or not. Lead on," she commanded to the dismay of the spectators, waving a hand imperiously.

The three Lions turned away to head elsewhere, and she crooked her finger to invite her friends to follow as well. After several turns and a flight of stairs, the Gryffindors entered what looked like it had once been a lounge of sorts. A couch and several chairs encircled a low-slung coffee table, and a variety of pillows and curtains and baskets were jumbled together in a corner. Granger must have noticed her assessing gaze, for the bushy-headed brunette explained, "Professor McGonagall let us use this room to prepare for the final Task last year. She was originally going to lend us the Transfiguration classroom, but she thought it would be better if we had a space we could use without having to worry about putting everything back the way it was before we were finished because it was time for another class."

"How  _generous_  of her," Jen replied, stopping in the middle of the space. Granger smiled at her words, and then she added, "I just claimed an empty room and used it as I saw fit. No need to bother asking for permission when only a tenth of the rooms are occupied by anything official. Now, Potter, what did you so  _desperately_  need to talk to me about that you would bother me when I was… well, doing literally  _anything else_  at all?"

The ginger bristled at her dismissive tone. "Hey,  _we're_ trying to be nice about this—"

"I honestly could not care less whether you  _intend_  to irritate me or not; the fact of the matter is that you  _are_. So  _again_ , is there a point to this, or do you plan to set me up for a  _second_  ambush?" She gave them a feral grin, more teeth gleaming than could ever be considered polite. "Because that didn't end well for the  _last_  group that tried it."

All three 'Light' teens grimaced at her tone, though whether it was due to her apparent apathy or the viciousness lurking underneath, she did not know. The school had been in an uproar immediately following the Shrieking Shack debacle, and Rita Skeeter's exposé and public lambasting of Dumbledore, followed shortly afterward by the arrival of MLEP officers to investigate the allegations, had only thrown  _more_  fuel on the fire. The Headmaster had been  _so_ angry that she would dare go back on her 'word' about keeping the matter in-house, as it were.

And the funniest part? Neither she nor anyone else in the family had gotten around to calling in the DMLE. Either the department had taken Rita's words at face value, or Umbridge had passed on the information of her own accord.

While Jen had originally had her doubts about how the chips would finally fall, the outcome was far from the worst she could imagine. Her fellow Ravens, even Chang's clique and those who would ordinarily be sympathetic to her attacker's cause, had banded around her to project a solid front; it was one thing to try claiming blood for blood, but any duel concerning House honor had certain rules and customs associated with it, and luring a target into a remote location so they could outnumber her ten to one flouted every single one of those traditions. The Hufflepuffs were torn, a few choosing to support their own housemates while the majority had decried the lack of fairness and justice such a tactic required. Shortly afterward, the Slytherins, perhaps sensing where the winds of public opinion were blowing, had all but cast out the lone Snake involved, though to be fair, few of the green-trimmed students had been on the side of the war where their families might have fallen afoul of Bellatrix's cruelty. Watching the Hufflepuff witch be led out of the school clapped in irons had probably not hurt.

Her standing in the Lions' Den had never been lower, obviously, but she did not particularly care about their opinions, Kenneth being the sole exception.

"No, nothing like that," Potter denied quickly. "We… Mum and Dad…" He sighed, looking at her companions with obvious reluctance. "Can we maybe talk… privately?"

"Send your friends away first," she shot back.

The boy she had the supreme misfortune to share a portion of her blood with shook his head. "They already know everything.  _Everything_ ," he stressed.

"What do you mean,  _'everything_ '?" demanded Luna.

Jen rolled her eyes and tried not to scream in rage; why couldn't these irritating Light bastards just develop some common  _bloody_  decency and learn to leave well enough  _alone_?! "He still refuses to believe that his father could have ever had an affair with my mother"—she waved at herself—"physical evidence notwithstanding. Instead… What lunacy was Granger spouting last month? That I'm actually your  _full_  sister despite the goblins' blood magics and my appearance declaring otherwise? And the reason no one saw me for fourteen years, and even then it was as the heir to a completely different House is— what, that I wandered off and got lost?" She forced out a snicker, the sound putting her friends at ease slightly. "Who would ever give credence to such a  _ridiculous_  lie?"

"That doesn't matter right now." She took no little enjoyment from watching him grind his teeth in anger. He and his parents  _should_  stew in their own anguish, and if they got burned because they just  _couldn't_  figure out not to play with fire? Well, that was hardly her fault. "Look, it's coming up on Christmas, and  _our_  father wants you to come over to spend some time with us, at least one day. That shouldn't be  _that_  much of a burden, should it?"

With a nasty smirk that her friends knew by now meant nothing good, she leaned back on her heels and tapped her chin with one finger. "Such an earnest request; how could I ever reply to that? Oh, I know. How about…  _No_."

" _Why. Not?"_

"My goodness, I think it'd be easier to give you a list of things that  _aren't_  influencing this decision. I already have other plans? I'm allergic to stubborn idiocy? There isn't enough gold  _in the whole wide world_  to make me give a damn about your House?" Her shrug was the epitome of nonchalance. " _Pick one_."

Taking a deep breath, Potter muttered, "Ron, Hermione, can you give us some space, please?"

"Are you sure?" Granger asked, shooting the Black heiress a suspicious glance.

"Honestly? No, but it looks like it's necessary."

The other Lions walked toward the door, and for a moment Jen seriously considered keeping her own friends around. Unfortunately, Potter – boorish Lion that he was – would probably mistake the power play for a display of cowardice. Nodding at the exit, she requested, "Could you go with them? I don't want to walk outside to find a mob carrying torches and pitchforks waiting for me."

Morag snorted and Luna rolled her eyes as they stepped away. Padma, however, looked askance at Potter asking, "You sure you don't want someone to stick around to make sure things don't get out of hand?"

"Oh, don't worry." She grinned mercilessly. "Not even in his wildest dreams could he pose a threat to me."

"I was actually offering to make sure  _he_  came out in one piece," the Hindu witch retorted with a small smile.

Watching her walk off – and probably watching her bum in the process, not that Jen could honestly blame him for  _that_  – Potter shook his head. "Your friends are…" He hesitated a moment too long before concluding, "They're good people, I think."

"That's probably the first thing you've said since we met that I actually agree with," she replied. Yes, it was an incredibly rude response when the proper course of action in this situation was that she should offer a similar compliment about his own friends, but for some  _strange_  reason, she just could not bring herself to care. She flicked her hand behind her back, erecting a silencing charm around the door. "Now get to the point of all this,  _if you please_."

He groaned and scrubbed at his face. "The  _point_  is that we want you to  _come home_. What is so hard to believe about that?"

"Besides that it requires you to have more empathy than a teaspoon and the ability to plan further out than one day in advance?"

"Dear Merlin," he sighed. "Look, I don't like you; I'm sure you've figured that out. I get that you don't like me—"

"How observant."

" _But_ , this isn't about me. It's not even really about you. It's about our  _parents_." Potter put on his most pitiful face and pleaded, "Look, just for  _one day_ , can you at least  _pretend_  that you have half a heart? Yes, Mum and Dad made a mistake when we were young. They're human; it happens to all of us, even you. But can you really say that you get so much fulfillment out of this grudge you're carrying that you can't even bear to spend time with your  _real_  family for  _one bloody day_?"

Jen was sure that her cackling was not the response he had been expecting. Calming down slightly, she commented, "I don't know which is funnier: that you thought such a pathetic appeal would sway me, or that you actually seem to  _believe_  the drivel pouring out of your mouth.

"For reasons that I cannot  _begin_  to comprehend, you and  _your_  parents seem to think I am hurting or have some deep-seated  _need_  for their acceptance and love and whatever other nonsense you people use as proof that you're good and Light and what have you. Listen up, because I'm tired of saying it:  _I. Don't. Care_. I don't want  _your_  House intruding in  _my_  life. I don't intend to paint a fake smile on my face while telling  _your_ parents that I  _forgive_  them for being such  _arrogant fools_  that they couldn't tell a witch from a Squib and don't have the bollocks to admit that they're just as invested in blood purity as the Houses they claim to despise. No, shut up," she snapped when Potter opened his mouth, "I'm still talking. Since you seemed to have missed it this summer, let me say this in words that even the dumbest of rocks could understand: I want nothing to do with you, your parents, or anyone else who is named Potter.  _Leave. Me. Alone_."

"Family doesn't abandon you, even if you don't want them around," Potter denied, and a moment later his face showed that he realized his mistake.

"Except for when they  _do_." She bared her teeth at him, the expression so unlike a smile that not even a blind man could miss its malevolence. "You want me to attend a  _'family gathering'_ , yes? Too bad. I  _might_  be convinced to attend your  _funerals_ , assuming I have nothing more interesting to do that day. Until that  _happy time_  arrives, however, stay out of my way.

A snap of her right wrist, her blank wand held in an iron grip, caused the door to be literally ripped off its hinges. She stormed outside, giving Potter's underlings a stare that anyone knowledgable about her darker side would immediate realize meant she was only a couple of steps away from wholesale slaughter, and then she turned back to the boy who was following on her heels. "And feel free to relay that message to your parents. Perhaps between the three of you, you can even come to a consensus that will avoid a feud with my own House.

"But I seriously doubt it."

* * *

A girl approached the table, setting a pair of beers onto the stained wood while tugging none-too-discreetly on the ragged hem of her high-cropped t-shirt. The effect would have been more impressive if her chest were not flat as an ironing board. "Is there anything  _else_  I can get you two?" she asked in a simpering voice.

"I think we're good for now," the man on the left replied, taking his drink and averting his eyes when the waitress departed with a credible sashay. From the corner of his mouth, he hissed, "If you'd  _hurry up_ , I'd appreciate it."

"I'm going as fast as I can, Simon. You think  _I_  like being in here any more than  _you_  do?" Eddie shot back, keeping unseeing eyes directed at the stage in front of them – but most definitely not the dancers cavorting on it – while using the small bronze knife hidden below the table to deepen the eihwaz rune he had carved on the underside.

"No, but  _you're_  single and don't have kids." Simon's eyes flicked back at the six-year-old who had served them, and then he took a large gulp from his beer. "It's worse when you're a family man. My  _daughter's_  her age, for Christ's sake!"

Eddie could feel for the other man, he really could. Gretchen was an adorable tyke, and as someone who had watched her grow up, he was equally distressed at seeing another girl the same age flaunting her prepubescent body in front of a bunch of depraved sickos. Unfortunately, he still had a job to complete, one he alone could do.

Despite what his teachers had told him while in school, Wizarding Britain was far from welcoming to the average Muggleborn. Unless somebody had a remarkable talent, played the political game to ingratiate himself with the 'right people', or – mostly witches – married into a Pureblood family, all he could do was settle for a menial job if he wanted to stay in that culture. Most did, but Eddie had grown up seeing his college dropout mother work three jobs just to put food on the table, and there was no way he was going to live like that himself.

Instead, he had left the magical world immediately after his graduation from Chléirigh. There weren't many places that would accept somebody without his A-levels, but thankfully one of the women in charge of hiring for the Cardiff Police Department had been in a similar situation when  _she_  was younger and so was willing to give him a little unofficial assistance. It had been twelve years since then, and now he was considered Wales's expert on strange or supposedly unsolvable crimes, thanks in no small part to the magic he covertly wielded to solve his cases.

Cases like this one. For  _years_  there had been whispers of a child brothel operating somewhere in southern Wales, but every time the police investigated those claims, they had returned with nothing to show for their efforts. Eventually all those claims had been dismissed, and the rumors were more or less forgotten. That summer, however, a new spate of reports had flooded in, and interviews from the self-claimed witnesses – none of whom had any previous connection to each other – had been  _remarkably_ consistent, far too much to be random chance.

That was why he had been called in, and it was a very good thing, indeed.

Generally, the  _'impossible'_  cases he was involved with were committed by normal people, which gave him a substantial advantage in terms of tracking and interrogating them. Having a partner to whom he revealed the broad strokes of the hidden magical society, despite the illegality of such an action, helped a lot when it came to translating his evidence into a form that would be admissible in court, too. Only twice before had his job pitted him against other wizards, and in both instances it was a murder charge that he could kick over to the DMLE. That department had only prosecuted the perpetrators for Muggle baiting, hardly equivalent to homicide, but at least it would allow the criminals to be placed in a prison that could actually  _hold_  them.

This time, though, he was dealing with a perfectly mundane crime…  _other_  than the fact that the business was protected by wards.

Ironically, it had been the very presence of the wards that had let him and Simon find the brothel in the first place. He had picked up a few tricks over the years from friends who  _hadn't_  left the magical world, and a few of them had involved ward-breaking. The protections around the building were interesting, subtle rather than strong: the first line of defense was a simple ill-intent ward that would hide the business from anyone who would try to shut it down, followed by a mild Confundus-like effect that would distort the memories of anyone leaving the building, which would explain why the rumors could never pinpoint exactly where the brothel was. Both wards could have individuals keyed into them, and if Eddie's reading was right, those people were capable of leading others through them as well, but the exact requirements for that process were a mystery; none of the witness who had come forward could guide them, so it was more than just having seen the internal layout. Thankfully, those meager diversions could not stop them from breaking the wards a little bit at a time, and in early November, they finally succeeded in bringing them down entirely.

Then someone, likely the creator of the wards, had restored them, and the truly devious aspect of the protections came to light.

Eddie and Simon had been inside and had even met a few of the children, and they had no issue recalling everything about the visit; theoretically, they could walk the entire Avryporth police force into the building. Unbeknownst to them, however, there had been a  _third_ layer to the defenses, one that – best Eddie could figure – prevented anyone already in the know from revealing information regarding the brothel with the idea of causing harm to the business or its employees. It had not targeted the summer intruders, likely because the wards had been down at the time, but for him and his partner? They were now bound to keep Candyland's secrets.

Obviously, that was a set of circumstances that could not be allowed to continue, hence the symbol he was carving on every table he could get to. Once past the protections, he had a few more options; eihwaz runes, in particular, had the useful effect of being able to degrade wards from the inside. A month should have been enough for this plan to work and bring down the defenses permanently, but a few days ago, they had returned to full strength yet again, and worse, all the runes he had previously carved had disappeared.

If he could just figure out  _who_  was so invested in keeping this place running…

The door leading outside opened, and his interest was piqued at the sight of the person entering. Over the past month of having to sit in this godforsaken place, he had come to recognize the general characteristics of the people who came in to enjoy its illegal and immoral delights, yet this individual fit none of them. She was young, mid to late teens if he had to guess, and wearing a skin-tight red dress that would not have looked out of place at a raunchy dance club. Despite the strangeness of her appearance and the surroundings that would have sent anyone running away in horror, she walked as if she owned the place.

"Who the hell is that?" Simon muttered, watching the newcomer as well.

"I don't…" Eddie cut himself off when the girl turned to respond to something a patron had said. He  _did_ recognize her; not personally, but her face had been on the front page of the  _Daily Prophet_  over the summer. "The Black girl?"

"What?"

He averted his eyes for a moment, his brain still working out what this new wrinkle could possibly mean. "You remember what I was telling you a few months back, how a child of one of the terrorists running around in the seventies had been found?"

His nonmagical partner thought for a moment. "Think so. Yeah, that paper of yours said she had been in hiding for years, as I recall. That's her?"

"Pretty sure. What's she doing here?" A few dots connected themselves, and he groaned softly. If he was right, and he very much hoped he was  _not_ , this case had just gotten a  _whole_  lot more complicated. "Dammit.  _That's_  why this place has wards around it. I think it's owned by the Blacks."

"Okay… And that's a problem, why?"

"They're essentially the magical version of the Adams Family," he replied, nodding at Simon's grimace. "Worse, even. Powerful, rich, ruthless, and with a high-placed seat in the wizards' Parliament, to boot. No one their bobbies are ever going to touch."

The other cop shook his head. "Even if we can link them to something like  _this_? Prostitution, child abuse, statutory rape, sexual battery, even outright  _slavery_! How could they ignore this?!"

"Because it's on  _our_  side of the law, not theirs," he pointed out. "That's enough for the DMLE to keep their hands to themselves. What  _I'm_  wondering is what's so important about this place that the Blacks are keeping such a close eye on it, and why they would send their heiress here at all." Turning his eyes back to the girl, he squinted. "What in the world?"

He had missed what occurred during to their conversation, but he had a perfect view of what happened next. The Black girl shot a look and a shrug to another girl that had approached, the redhead looking like she was just now entering adolescence, before pulling the younger girl's face closer and giving her a deep,  _hungry_  kiss. The pervert gallery hooted at that; when she pulled away and walked past the girl, her hand came swinging down to thwack the employee hard on the rear.

The child's startled, wide-eyed expression provoked yet another wave of raucous laughter.

Black smiled and gave the freaks a jaunty wave before making her way to the bar. A couple of seconds' talk with the boy manning it and looking out at the room as a whole, and then she departed down a back hallway marked  _'Employees Only'_.

"So, we've stumbled upon a child brothel owned and managed by a magical crime family," Simon said, going back to their original conversation. "A brothel that their heir has been to and has no problems with, despite being only a few years older than the kids here. And nothing's going to get the wizards to come here to shut it down. Is that about what I'm hearing?"

Eddie sighed. "Pretty much. Thankfully, we don't have to bring the  _Blacks_  in; we just need to bust the doors down, arrest the customers, and hand the kids over to Social Services. Deny the Blacks money, and they'll turn their eyes somewhere else." He thought for a moment. "Probably."

"Gee, that just  _fills_  me with confidence. Come on, get that rune thingy working and let's get the hell out of here," his partner said, draining the rest of his beer.

"And here I thought I had broken you of calling magic  _'thingy'_  or  _'mojo'_  years ago," the wizard chuckled faintly. Tapping the rune with his wand and a muttered  _'Epoto'_ , he stood. "Done."

The two men left the building, reclaiming their coats as they went by the rack in the front, and stepped out into the chilly December air. Simon's car was just a couple of blocks away, but as they headed toward it, the man stopped at the mouth of an alley. "Hey, do you hear that?"

"What?" He stepped closer and peered into the shadows. "No, I don't hear any— Gah!"

He stumbled forward, his ears ringing after the sudden impact to the back of his head. Turning around let him see his partner just a moment before the older man fell on top of him, hands grasping desperately at this throat. "Simon!" he grunted, and then his voice caught when he saw the other policeman's eyes.

Blank, cloudy, unfocused. The eyes of someone under the Imperius Curse.

That moment of distraction was enough, and Simon, unable to break the puppeteer's control, twisted behind him and wrapped thick arms around his neck. His vision began to dim as he struggled ineffectively against the chokehold.

"Not too tight, now. We don't want him hurt  _yet_ , do we?"

Simon's arms relaxed minutely, enough for Eddie to take a breath and watch a female figure fade into sight. He had never heard her voice before, and she was now wearing a dark jumper and jeans, but it was not hard to guess her identity. "Black."

"Very good." The teen approached and crouched in front of him, eyes glittering with cruel amusement as they stared into his own. "And you're… Eddie Croft, yes? Now that we know each other, why don't you tell me what you were doing in Candyland and why you were trying to bring down my wards? For the  _third_ time."

"Child brothel. That should tell you everything you need to know, you monst— Ugh!"

She waved at his partner to stop squeezing. "I think he gets the message, Simon dear. He'll be more  _polite_  in the future." The girl tilted her head back and pursed her lips. "Clearly it was a mistake to let the wards run down so much this summer. If not for those people stumbling in, we wouldn't be in this mess now.

"Oh well, that's easy enough to fix. Honestly, with enough time this recent fuss will diminish enough on its own. The real question is, what am I going to do with  _you_?"

"There's nothing you can do," he bluffed. "Not without bringing the DMLE down on your head. I've kept them up to date on what I was doing, and they take a  _very_ dim view on using the Unforgivables."

"Correct, they do, but we both know that I don't have to worry about them finding out." She smiled, the expression sharp and wicked. "You have as little to do with the magical world as you can, and while wards on a Muggle business might have gotten their attention, they know nothing about it. Nor will they, if I have anything to say about it. Which, as a matter of fact, I  _do_. In fact, neither of you have told anyone  _anything_ about your progress.

"And so, we find our way back to my question. Killing you would be the simplest thing. Frame it on some homeless bum, and no more questions would need to be asked." Black shook her head. "But that sounds like such a waste. Surely I can find something more  _useful_ for you. You're a bobbie, and having eyes and ears in law enforcement, even the Muggle one, can only be a good thing."

After thinking for another moment, the witch nodded. "Yes, that's exactly what I'll do. Auntie made me promise not to do it again without letting her know beforehand, but modifying your memory should give me some leeway." She leaned closer and whispered, "Besides, what she doesn't know won't hurt her, don't you agree?"

 _This can only end badly_ , Eddie thought. He jerked and twisted, visualizing where he wanted to go, but no matter how he tried, he could not Apparate himself and Simon away.

"Seriously? You think I can't do something as simple as throw up a jinx to prevent you escaping?" Black shook her head and pointed one finger at his head, and somehow the lack of a wand only made him panic more. "Just hold still; trust me, you don't want me messing this up. Now how did it go? Swoop and twist and—

"That's the whole town covered," Simon muttered, shaking snow off his coat and climbing into the driver's side of the car. "Every street walked, and no hints of any child brothel anywhere in the city. Three months gone with nothing to show for it."

Eddie nodded and huddled in front of the car's heater. "True, but at least we can tell the locals that there's nothing to be concerned about. The 'witnesses' were probably just drunk, or maybe playing a prank." And just to make sure all the loose ends were tied off, he would Obliviate the chief of the Avryporth PD and the others he could remember speaking to. He was doing them a favor, really; rumors like this one could all too easily cause problems totally out of proportion to reality. Better they forgot all about it. And once that was done

His hand drifted to his wrist, or more specifically, the strange tattoo he could not recall getting: a square drawn around an owl with a man's head. Once he was back home, he had a letter to send to Rita Skeeter. Surely she would find his offer  _intriguing_.

* * *

Jen flicked her blank wand, conjuring a stone bench with soft cushions, and fell onto it gratefully. "This term is  _finally_  over, Baron be praised."

"It wasn't  _that_  bad," Padma denied, conjuring a low-slung seat of her own. The rest of her friends did likewise, Tracey making sure to take the place closest to her right hand, except for Luna; the blonde instead plopped onto the bench beside her and all but cuddled into her left side. The grounds around the lake were totally abandoned, everyone else choosing to spend the last day at the castle actually  _inside_  the castle, which meant she did not need to worry about setting up a silencing charm along with the warming charm. "And you don't have any room to complain, considering how you outright skipped DADA today."

"Intentionally skip a class? Me? You must be mistaken." The dark witch shook her head. "I'll have you know that I merely got caught up in a book in the library."

"Uh huh," Justin replied, disbelief obvious in his tone. "This may come as a surprise to you, but you  _aren't_ actually as good a liar as you like to think you are."

She just gave him an enigmatic smile at that.

"So! What's everybody's plan for the break?" Susan asked, clapping her hands. "Anyone doing anything exciting?"

"You are entirely too cheerful, Bones," Tracey retorted, though everyone by now could tell that her grumpy attitude was mostly an act. The undercurrent of bitterness, on the other hand, was quite real. "I think I'll stick around here, myself. Too much drama at the homestead that I'd much rather avoid."

The others nodded, none of them knowing what Jen did. By  _'too much drama'_ , what the Slytherin meant was that it was too  _dangerous_ , for her and Vesta both.

The redheaded Badger frowned as a thought occurred to her. "Are you at least going to the ball Thursday night?"

Tracey shook her head in some disappointment. "No, I'm afraid I have to give it a miss. Maybe next year."

"I'm sorry, but ball? What ball?" Morag demanded eagerly. The Scottish witch had been highly disappointed that, despite the success of the Yule Ball the previous year, the Hogwarts staff had been opposed to making a school-funded dance an annual occurrence.

"The Ministry holds a ball every winter solstice," Jen explained. "We – my family, that is – were the ones volunteered to host it this year. I'd invite you to come, but it's kind of…  _restrictive_  as to who gets invitations."

"Ah, one of  _those_  kinds of parties," said Justin in a knowing tone. "My parents attend a bunch of them. Don't worry, Morag; you're not missing anything. Bad food and worse conversation."

"I will have you know that the House of Black  _never_ serves bad food at a ball," the heiress cut in with an affected haughty voice. She laughed then and continued, "Mostly because we're going to make sure we serve enough wine while everyone's milling around that they won't be able to tell the difference between caviar and cardboard."

The others smiled at her joke, and then Luna asked, "Does anyone have any plans for Christmas Eve?"

They all looked at each other, several frowning slightly. "My father wants us to visit family back in India, not that Parv or I am really excited about it. Why do you ask?" prompted Padma.

"It's a yearly tradition for the magical families where we live to wassail the apple orchards late on Christmas Eve night. I know it's not as exciting as a Ministry ball, but if anyone wants to come, you'd be more than welcome." The little blonde gave them a weak, sad smile. "That's just if you want to. I'd understand if—"

"It sounds like fun," Jen interrupted before the younger girl could sink any lower. "I've never been to a wassail before. Who else normally shows up?"

"Let me think… Daddy and me, the Diggories,"—that caught Morag's attention, at least—"the Kingsfords, and the McNeeses; they have a huge horde of little kids, none of them school-aged, and the Kingsfords all go to St. Nicholas." Luna thought for a moment longer. "The Weasleys never show up, but they do live nearby, so there's a  _small_  chance you might have to deal with them.  _Really_  small."

"Oh? Why don't they attend, as well?" Jen asked curiously.

Luna rolled her silver eyes. "Because they  _'refuse to be associated with dark magic'_. We're calling forth the magic of the trees so next year's harvest will be healthy and plentiful, but because it doesn't involve our wands, it's considered part of the Old Ways, so obviously it  _must_  be dark. It doesn't keep them from talking to us the rest of the year, but soon as winter rolls around, they like to pretend they're the only magical family in Ottery St. Catchpole." Shaking her head for a moment, she then shared a crafty grin. "Of course, long ago someone figured out the best possible revenge we could get on them: we just wassail their trees without them knowing. Not only does it mean we act like good neighbors, we get to entertain each other with jokes about how they would act if they ever found out what we're doing. Mrs. McNeese's impression of Mrs. Weasley is to die for!"

"That sounds like fun," Kenneth commented. "I can't promise anything – I don't know how my parents will go for me not being with the family on Christmas Eve – but I'll definitely try to make it."

"I, as well. Sirius may or may not come along; it'll depend on whether he places more value on staying inside and warm or on alcohol and pranks," Jen agreed. Of course, when she put it  _that_  way…

"That's great! Anyone else?" The rest of their group shook their heads, and Luna sighed before giving them a shrug of her shoulders. "Oh well, if you can't, you can't. If you change your minds, though, just Floo to the Rook around nine or so. You'll be more than welcome."

* * *

"Couldn't sleep?"

Lily aimed a glare at her husband, her eyes only slightly bleary. "Whatever could have given you  _that_ idea?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe it was you being in the kitchen instead of our bed at… three o'clock in the morning?" James shook his head and put away his watch before walking closer. Picking up the near-empty wine bottle, he asked, "How much was in here before you got into it?"

"I fail to see how that's any of your concern," she sniped back as she stole the bottle back out of his grasp. Once she had poured the last few drops into her goblet, she reached out with a remarkably steady hand and stuffed the cork back into place, a few scraps of wax still clinging on doggedly.

"Great, I'm married to an alcoholic," he joked. Her resulting expression made it clear that his remark was not as funny as he thought. "Just make sure you get rid of it before Augusta sees. I don't think either of us wants to see her reaction to that."

"Who do you think showed me where the key to the cellar was? All she said was to stay out of her brandy."

James shook his head and pulled out a chair to seat himself. "Do I at least get to hear  _why_  my dearest, most beautiful wife has turned to wine to drown her problems?"

"I don't know; maybe it's because my family seems to be dead set on tearing itself apart? My children hate each other, my husband is gone six days out of the week, and my daughter sees me as the wicked stepmother in the fairy tale of her life."

"Lils, it's not that bad." She raised one eyebrow, and he hastily amended, "Okay, yes it's bad, but I wouldn't say our kids  _hate_  each other. They… just have conflicting personalities."

It did not escape her notice that he ignored her other points. "When Hermione calls Jenny an  _'arrogant, self-centered, condescending brat'_  where she thinks I can't hear them and Danny wholeheartedly agrees with her, I'd say it's more than just  _conflicting personalities_."

"Well… All right, you may have a point there. But keep in mind that they don't know each other well. Once they spend more time together, I'm sure they'll find some common ground. A love of Quidditch or being bad at chess or—"

"Did you see her at either Quidditch game this year, even the Hufflepuff–Ravenclaw match a couple of weeks ago?" Lily pointed out, draining her glass. "And she's a Ravenclaw; I'm pretty sure they're required to be good at chess.  _And_  Danny is most definitely  _your_ son, so they can't talk about their favorite books or plays because he doesn't care for them. Nor can they reminisce about their childhoods, since he was with us his whole life and she was abused for years before living who-knows-where. What's your  _next_  great idea?"

_And is it just going to push her farther away from us like all your_ **_other_ ** _ones have?_

He thought for a moment and then deflected, "Why do  _I_  have to be the one coming up with all the plans? You like to say you're the brains in our relationship; surely you have  _some_  scheme you're working on."

"If I had any idea what to do, do you think I would've just drunk a whole bottle of wine by myself?" she retorted, rolling her empty goblet between her fingers for emphasis.

"Fair point." He shook his head. "But look on the bright side: we'll see her at the Ministry ball tonight. You know Danny will spend his time with Neville and the Abbott girl, and I have some things to talk about with various people—"

"Yes, that bill you're working on to restrict the grandfathering of Dark objects as family heirlooms…" She trailed off, a thought beginning to congeal through the Merlot's haze. Considering how close Jenny was to Narcissa Malfoy and how proudly she proclaimed her adopted heritage, she was probably a Dark witch herself, wasn't she? Or, if nothing else, she might enjoy stymying James in the political arena. What Lily was considering was dishonest and manipulative, to be sure, but with the Blacks' less than sterling reputation, perhaps that would even earn her extra points…

There was more than enough blame to go around for their current situation – herself for giving Jenny to Petunia, James for convincing her to do it and driving her daughter farther and farther away, Dumbledore for fudging up the charm that identified her as a Squib in the first place and daring to suggest they give her up so she might have  _'a chance for a decent life'_  – but when the chips were down, sometimes it was every witch for herself.

"If we can frame it well enough, it will remove heirloom exemptions entirely, but you're right, it will almost certainly have to be weakened to bring the Neutrals onboard," James sighed, oblivious to her traitorous thoughts. "Anyway, maybe you can get a chance to drag her off for a one-on-one chat."

She nodded. "I'm sure we can find something to talk about."

"That's the spirit. Up you get," he said as he stood and pulled her to her feet. With a laugh, he jested, "Now let's get you back to bed before you find something  _else_  to worry about."

" _Aaaaaaaaaaah_!"

"You just  _had_  to jinx it, didn't you?" she snapped, drawing her wand as they rushed to the source of that blood-curdling scream. Following the pained sounds, they barreled through the terrified Weasley twins, then Hermione and Ginny, and then nearly stopped in their tracks themselves. Danny was spread out on his bed, Ron and Neville trying desperately to hold him down as he bucked and convulsed, all the while gasping for air and trying to shout at the same time.

"What happened?!" James demanded.

"He just woke up and started screaming!" Neville shouted back. "And his scar! It just…!"

Lily looked down and knew instantly what her godson meant. The familiar and wretched lightning bolt was split open, streams of bright red blood dribbling down his forehead while  _something_  wriggled and writhed in the wound.

Apologizing profusely in her mind for what she was about to do, she aimed her wand at the hole, but before she could summon the pink, crooked strip… it simply vanished.

A wave of James's wand sealed the ragged wound, the resultant scar even uglier than before; it now looked almost as if it had been  _burned_  into his skin. "Neville, go to the Floo and get Professor Dumbledore over here," he ordered. "He needs to know about this."

* * *

**Hard as it may be to believe, I had planned months ago for Danny to have this confrontation with Jen in early December, but it wasn't until I actually sat down to write the scene that I realized it could all too easily happen on the one day of the year when she is just a _complete and total_  bitch. Poor Danny.**

**For a place that originally supposed to have a single mention, Candyland has certainly reappeared again and again in this story. I'm not sure that's a good thing. Oh, and a brief history lesson for my fellow non-Brits: the Adams (not Addams) Family was an organized criminal syndicate not unlike the Sicilian Mafia that was incredibly powerful in the 80s and 90s. It is alleged that they had officers of the Metropolitan Police and even a member of Parliament in their pocket at the height of their power.**

**Of course, a more accurate analogy for the Black family would probably be the Medici family of Renaissance Florence, but Eddie and Simon aren't exactly good with history.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	25. Dark Devotions

**Impstar, Not an Eldritch Horror:**  The reason Jen is so intent on keeping Candyland open is that while she was still with the Dursleys, Vernon threatened numerous times to send her to an orphanage – like we've all seen in fanfics before – so she inadvertently internalized the idea that Socials Services is an enemy. Combine that with horror stories about foster homes she heard from other employees, and she honestly thinks keeping the cops away is the best way to protect "her" kids; as I've mentioned before, this is one of the only morals she has left.

I think I'll elaborate more on this in a later scene, but fair warning: it may be somewhat graphic by the time I'm done.

**I thought I was going to get all the way through the Solstice Ball this week, but… Let's just say that one scene in particular got away from me. Then again, it's also one several people have been waiting for, so maybe that isn't a** _**bad** _ **thing.**

**Disclaimer:**  Was Tom Riddle able to go anywhere in Hogwarts he wanted when he returned for his job interview, even though Dumbledore knew he and his Death Eaters were there and was still highly mistrustful of the budding Dark Lord? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 25  
** **Dark Devotions**

Jen twisted the knob to cut off the shower, and water ran in freezing rivulets down her body to wash away the last few grains of salt still sticking stubbornly to her skin.  _A warm bath in salt water, then a cold shower in pure_ , she recited to herself,  _but why the temperatures for those two can't be reversed, I'll never know_. Pulling back the curtain, she stepped out of the shower and picked up a rough towel to dry herself.  _And of_ _ **course**_ _any magic that would make me more comfortable is strictly forbidden_.

A breath of the smoldering bundles of sage and jasmine scattered through the room quickly cleared her head, or at least reminded her of what was at stake.

She walked to the sink, or more specifically to the bowls of paint she had put there before her watery ablutions. Sponges, already dripping with black and purple dyes, rose and began sweeping over her outstretched arms while a snap of her fingers caused her hair to be pulled up in a loose clump on the back of her head. It would need to be loose during the ritual – which was why she had sheared it off to just above her shoulders rather than leave it stretching to her upper back, to keep it from disturbing anything – but for her preparations, it was best that it stay completely out of the way. The sponges reached her shoulders and turned to continue down her back and over her breasts, and she dipped her fingers in the smaller dishes of black and white paints.

This degree of preparation was unusual for her; normally, she would simply worry about the runes and veves and not bother with what she herself looked like. Not even Elsie, born and raised in Haiti, the heartland of Voodoo itself, went through a complete purification or dolled herself up like this on a regular basis. While it never  _hurt_  – in point of fact, it made the magic more worthy of the Baron's attention – most of the rituals found in the grimoire she generally used,  _Maji a ak Spirtuèl nan Vodou_ , made no mention of such details, the procedures so old and so practiced that they had been stripped of all but the barest essentials. Honestly, the last time she had ever gone to this much effort was when she was eight and still learning the finer nuances of her craft.

Unfortunately, the magic she was about to work was not in that book, nor in any other that she knew of. It was instead of her own creation.

Hence the elaborate decorations. She was confident that it  _would_  succeed, as she had cobbled it together from several other rituals, even if they were only tangentially related to tonight's grisly purpose, but if this were not exactly right, the dedication her preparations displayed was believed to persuade the Baron to be more forgiving of mistakes and thereby ward off a potential rebound. She would rather not have to go home in a couple of hours and explain to the rest of the family how she had lost her magic or a limb or even the entirety of her physical form. And that assumed she could survive the backfire of magic in the  _first_  place.

The sponges trailed over her feet and tumbled away, and a loincloth, the only clothing she would wear during this early morning ritual, rose almost of its own accord and tied itself around her waist. The silver blocks of the belt sat heavily on her hips while the ragged ends of the cloth strips tickled the middle surfaces of her knees. She pulled her fingertips away from her neck and wiped the excess paint off on a rag, a flick of her wrist causing her hair to tumble down from its perch. Taking a deep breath, she raised her head to examine the finished product in the mirror.

A white skull, wreathed in darkness and shadows, stared back at her.

Another deep inhale, and the black witch walked solemnly out of the bathroom and down the hall. The false wall that normally hid the entrance to the basement had already been pulled away, and the candlelight issuing from that secret room lent a mysterious and disturbing cast to the stairwell. Her feet itched as they transitioned from cool wood to dirt, and she quirked one blanched eyebrow when she saw the table in the back. Her bone dagger sat on the edge, hilt facing her; to its left was a glass ashtray and a sackcloth pouch of tobacco, and to its right, a lowball glass and a bottle of sweet rum. What made their appearance so surprising was the fact that she could swear she had not set them out yet.

She felt an odd sensation as soon as her eyes left the items, almost a tickling inside her head. Casting her magic out around her found nothing around her, and the results a tentative, metaphorical poke yielded were less than helpful. The sensation, as best she could tell, was not malevolent, but beyond that she could determine nothing. After another moment, it  _pulsed_ , and shoring up her courage, she slowly allowed it to approach. A wave of power, colder than even ice, swept through her body, and for a brief moment she could almost smell the aroma of burning cigars. Straightening her posture and allowing what could only be the mantle of the Baron's strength to settle upon her shoulders and smother her doubts, she waved her hand to fill the ashtray and glass and summon her blade. "It's showtime."

 _Five is the number for 'manifestation'; this is why the ancient philosophers were convinced that five elements, balanced in opposition, were required for life_ , she thought as she finished carving the last of that many coffin icons into the dirt. That it was also the reason Muggles believed pentagrams could summon demons was something she really did not want to consider at the moment. Between the equidistant veves she sketched lines of four runes: closest to the circle she had previously traced around her workspace was fehu for possessions and glory, followed by gebo for unity and connection – or, as Elsie had always described it,  _'like calls to like'_  – then ehwaz for transportation, and finally jera, the character for a hard-won success, the closest inward. In the middle of the space she drew the complete veve for the Baron: a crosshatched cross on an elaborate stand, representations of flowers projecting from the points. She then set the enchanted skull containing Voldemort's soul jar in front of the coffin nearest the desk. It stayed silent due only to her earlier command, which she had given after checking that she had squeezed all the information she wanted out of it, but the flames that made up its eyes danced and trembled in obvious fear.

A wave of her hand to erect a frame over each coffin, and the stage was set for the more… gruesome scenes of this production.

She walked over to the table, activating the circle as she passed so the deathly magics within would be contained rather than allowed to dissipate, and picked up a cage sitting on the ground. Opening the top and smiling at the mice scurrying around in fright inside, she levitated each of the tiny mammals to its respective frame, and then she ended the transfigurations.

"W-W-What the hell?!" one of the men shakily exclaimed, shrieking when ropes slithered from the corners of the wooden rectangle surrounding him to lash his limbs tight to the rack.

"I'd say I'm sorry to keep you trapped as rodents… for three straight days… but I'm really not," Jen said with a smirk, picking something else up from the table before stepping back into the circle. "Now I must admit, normally I don't care about the past actions of my sacrifices. Hero or monster, saint or devil; you are all the same in death.  _You_  five, however, managed to brass me off something  _fierce_. You want to sell drugs, break into cars, murder rivals? Sure, that's fine. But breaking into people's houses to rape women and kill them when you're done?" She shook her head, all signs of amusement vanished. "That just isn't something that I can permit to continue."

"Who are you?!  _What_  are you?!" another cried, shouting to be heard over the first gangster's words.

Her expression of gleeful malice only grew larger as she took in the mental states of the five sacrifices. Being transformed into mice for several days would be bad enough, but when they were just Muggles who did not know the first thing about magic? Why, one of them was already broken, his eyes roving unseeing around the room!  _It is a very good thing this doesn't require them to be…_ _ **completely intact**_.

Rather than answer their increasingly desperate pleas and demands for explanation, she turned her attention to the next step in the ritual. Flipping her dagger around in her hand, she stabbed into the scar on her left wrist. The blood did not drip or dribble like usual, but instead it positively  _gushed_  out.

 _I think I hit something important this time_ , she thought in a mental voice far calmer and more disinterested than she knew she should be. She straightened her arm, letting gravity direct the river of crimson into her palm. A flick of her right hand then had the incision sealed, though the resulting scar was thicker and more distorted than it had been before, a band of white tissue rather than a barely visible line.

After another second or two, it shifted to become thinner again, but now it was also tipped with the same flowers she had drawn jutting off the central veve.

She moved her gaze down to her drenched hand, specifically the leaves her familiar had gathered for her that were soaking in her vital fluid, and waved her bone blade over the bloodied leaves once, twice. On the third pass, they  _shifted_ ; not in shape or substance, but instead becoming flattened and hard, as if they had been pressed between the pages of a book. With a sharp smile, she showed the serrated edges to her captives. "I put a lot of consideration into just how to kill you. Originally I was going to emulate Vlad Tepeş, who executed his enemies and criminals by having them slowly impaled on trees, but then I had a better thought. If I'm going to kill the unkillable"—her grin even more wicked—"then I'm all but  _required_  to use mistletoe to do the deed."

The four rapists who had  _not_  yet lost their minds stared at her in fear and confusion.

"People have no appreciation for the classics these days," she pouted, throwing the leaves into the air and causing them to whip rapidly around her. Her arm snapped toward the earthen floor, and the spelled plants shot into the men's throats.

Blood poured from the holes left behind when the leaves shredded their way through flesh, and more leapt into the air. Unlike the venous blood streaming down the men's bared chests, the arterial spurts did not continue falling to the ground; instead they hung unsupported like puddles of rubies, growing larger as more scarlet arcs pooled together. After several additional seconds, the five criminals breathed their last, and then the sanguineous spheres swelled and began spinning in place, splattering the walls and floor and even ceiling. One by one, items dropped out of the orbs: a golden locket, a silver circlet… a carved skull?

 _How in the world did that manage to move without me noticing it?_ , Jen wondered as she looked down at the feet of the man beside her, just in time to watch a short strip of – hard as it was to believe – vibrant pink flesh fall to the ground. When the last soul jar, a heavy gold ring, dropped into the dirt, she gave them all a final check. Sure enough, each of the objects contained a copy of Voldemort's magical core.

Her ritual, for all her prior uncertainties, had succeeded.

 _Clap. Clap. Clap_.

She whirled around at the sudden sound, dagger held high above her head, but her eyes could find nothing. Nor could her sonar, though that was due more to the magical circle she had erected cutting her primary sense off from the wider world than any other factor. The only thing in her line of sight was the basement's table, and it was this that held her attention. The tumbler of rum had been moved to the edge and now sat empty; the last ember of the burning tobacco glowed briefly before snuffing itself out.

"…Well,  _that_  isn't creepy at all," she muttered, shuddering when the scent of cigars and almost imperceptible weight she had nearly forgotten about disappeared as well. Fearful eyes shot to her wrist and examined the altered scar that now adorned her skin. How had she dismissed that?! And the leaves; she had planned to transfigure them into spikes and stab the sacrifices, not give them attributes of her Death Focus! She hadn't even known that was  _possible_!

 _Okay, Jen, hold it together. And don't think about what this could potentially mean too much, for all that lies down that road is madness and paranoia_. Shaking her head, she instead turned around again to survey her prizes.  _A gaudy locket, a cheap ring, the skull… Wait. Is that_ _ **Ravenclaw's diadem**_ _?!_  The silvery tiara gleamed innocently at her, and for a long moment she was tempted to keep it, to put it on, but finally she pulled herself back from the brink.  _Voldemort, if I didn't already have a reason to kill you, this would be enough of one. I don't have the materials to transfer this soul shard, or a receptacle to hold it in._

 _Should I keep this one with me, just in case I find something else to use?_  She pondered that for several seconds before sighing.  _Except I don't know when I'd get a suitable vessel, and I need to destroy this before I can kill him. And if I don't finish this by the Baron's deadline… Well, he would almost certainly make that word_ _ **literal**_.

"' _The last all see, but do not know / In the hands of another foe'_ ," she recited as she turned away from temptation to focus on the strangest soul jar. Was it, like Voldemort's snake, from a living creature? "Well, the first part of that is true, all right. What could this have possibly come from?

"I suppose it doesn't really matter. It will be destroyed all the same." She took three steps backward to set her dagger down and scuff the edge of the circle as she passed, breaking the line and bringing down the boundary of her field. A swoop of her left hand had the five soul jars hanging together in space, and slowly, regretfully, she hurled a fistful of blue and white flames at them.

The loose fireball exploded when it touched the artefacts, and she stared sadly at the sphere of cursed fire. Three deep breaths later in a futile attempt to calm herself, she turned her head away and dismissed the dark fire magic.

Two voids thudded to the ground.

 _What in the Baron's name?_ , she silently demanded. The first and most obvious survivor of the conflagration was – to her immense delight – the diadem, though the knowledge that it was not truly part of this world was more than a little disconcerting. Creeping toward it with all due caution, she hesitantly stretched her hand toward the silver circlet. The instant her fingertips came in contact with the metal, she jerked them back with an aborted scream and cradled her injured limb to her chest.

" _Madichon ou! Ou menm_ _ **ak**_ _kreyatè ou!_ _ **Poukisa**_ _sa a gen yo dwe majik blan?!_ " A flood of dark magic made the burning pain diminish and finally disappear, though that did little to nothing to restore her joy. Of all the horrible things she could have learned today, that Rowena Ravenclaw's fabled diadem had been forged by a Light Power and was therefore forever out of her reach was  _not_  one she would have ever expected.

 _At least it explains why Voldemort chose to house a fragment of his soul inside it instead of using it for its intended purpose. If he had put it on his head, his brain would have boiled inside his skull. It's a wonder his idea worked in the_ _ **first**_ _place_.

Jen turned her glare to one corner of the room, in which sat an unprepossessing wooden crate. A flick of her wrist lifted the lid to reveal the iron plates decorating the inside, and a second had the offending item flying into the opening. This was something Elsie had used numerous times to store cursed objects that fell into her hands – often later to sell them to Donald Borgin for a tidy sum – and the crotchety old woman would almost certainly agree with her on this point. In the eyes of a black witch, items given to mankind by the Light Powers were as cursed as one could could get.

Curiosity now sufficiently tempered, she bent down to get a better look at the second item. It was a small black stone, and tentatively reaching out with one finger, she sighed when all her poke earned was a chill.  _Fantastic. At least if it's a Dark Treasure, I can potentially find a use for it._  She flipped it over and paled when she saw the design on its other face, a triangle circumscribing a circle and bisected by a line.  _Or maybe not_.

The tiny gem sitting in her palm had several names. The Resurrection Stone, the  _Bijou Baron_ , or what she thought was the most  _descriptive_  title,  _Wòch la nan Namn Fou_. The Stone of Mad Souls.

The way Elsie had told her the story when she was young, the stone she now held in her hand was not a blessing but a curse, given to a man who had thought to command Death. He had sacrificed a newborn and then, when the Baron appeared to ferry the child's soul away, used foul magics to bind the baby to him.  _'If you want the child'_ , the man said,  _'you must give me something in exchange. Return to me my wife's soul.'_

Such a thing was impossible, for the Baron was the Gatekeeper to the Afterlife and not the king, but the man did not know this. The Baron, most wroth at this blatant insult, merely chuckled and agreed amicably. He bent down to pluck up a stone from the crossroads he was standing in and waved his hand over it.  _'You have clearly beaten me,'_  the Baron told the man,  _'and so you are rightfully due your prize. Take this stone, and when you turn it in your hand three times and call out your wife's name, she will appear before you. Then the two of you can be together again.'_

The man, not realizing the peril his grief and deceit had put him in, agreed to the bargain and traded the baby's soul for the stone. When he returned home, he did as the Baron had said, and the ghost of his wife appeared. She was unhappy to be called back to the realm of the living, however, and so she begged and pleaded for him to release her. Instead, she suggested, he should join  _her_  so they could spend eternity together. Moved by her words, he hanged himself that very night, and in his folly threw himself into the clutches of the entity he had so greatly angered.

The reason Elsie had told Jen that story was that it contained a couple of lessons anyone who practiced black magic absolutely had to learn. First, a black witch should never insult one of the Dark Powers, regardless of it was her patron Power or one of the other six, for those beings were quick to seek revenge and slow to forgive a slight. The second, however, was that it was crucial to know each Dark Power's demesne. The Baron, for instance, could usher souls into the Afterlife, but he could not return them by his own hands; that was a talent that lay solely with the leader of the Wild Hunt.

As for the secret behind the  _Wòch nan Namn Fou_? While Death could not bring souls back to mortal world, he  _was_  fully capable of crafting illusions and seeing into men's hearts. The Stone, rather than raise the ghosts of the dead, merely displayed projections based on the user's expectations. Once created, those shades had a single goal: to lure whomever wielded it to kill herself. It was, without a doubt, a most terrible trick.

 _And not one I'm going to fall for_. She threw the  _Wòch_ toward the corner as well, and it pinged off the ferrous plate on the crate's lid to clatter against the diadem. "Two Treasures, neither of which I can use," she sighed. "On the bright side, the soul jars are gone. That's something, at least.

"Now I just need to figure out how to deal with Voldemort himself."

* * *

Loki's curious pecks at the scar on her wrist pulled a sad laugh out of Jen. "I know it looks strange. That's not what I'm worried about, though. This is the second time the Baron's gotten into my head like that and altered how I thought, and now I've been truly marked by him. I'm just…" She thought for a moment. "…cautious, concerned about what this could mean. And understandably so, I think."

Shrugging his wings, the raven climbed up her arm and began preening her hair. His clicks and burbles succeeded in relaxing her, and he cawed a rebuke when her falling shoulders forced him to readjust his grip.

"Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm just panicking for no good reason. It isn't like he didn't already own me, body and soul." She turned her head to nuzzle his breast feathers. "And even if this  _did_  change me, turned me into someone else entirely, you'd still stay by my side, right?" A smile replaced her hint of desperation when he just looked at her like she were an idiot and resumed fiddling with her locks.

Her pondering was interrupted by a sudden burst of cold appearing in the townhouse. Jen redirected her unfocused sonar, and her momentary peace shattered when she realized that, other than the lingering haze of dark magic, she could not feel anything inside Cissy's room. Worse, the last she checked, that had been where the woman was.

She threw herself off the window seat and ran for the stairs, Loki taking wing and following her as she climbed to the third floor. Sliding to a stop, she was about to bang heavily on her aunt's door when she heard a voice speaking inside. "…and guide Draco. In his arrogance, he has chosen to walk a risky road, and I fear that he will fall before he can turn away from it. He is still a boy who believes the best of his father; that devotion may be his undoing if he is left on his own."

 _That_ _ **sounds**_ _like her, but I've never felt her put up any protection like this before_. Jen pressed her hand against the door and hissed when she felt the chill of the wood and the rattling of her bones. This was not just dark magic; it wasn't even black. It was something  _more_.

"Please, protect Jen as well," Cissy continued, still unaware of her eavesdropping. "I know she's hiding things from us; we never would have even known that she had been ambushed and almost killed if it weren't for that letter from Flitwick. Her life is getting more dangerous, and I know she can probably handle it – better than any of the rest of us, I imagine – but she's only fifteen, and she doesn't know all the ins and outs that she needs to know if she's going to keep butting heads with Dumbledore. I fear that she will one day overreach herself and then not be able to recover. Please, shelter and protect her from those who wish her harm.

"These pleas I make in earnestness and honesty, entrusting all I am to your mercy."

Silence filled the hallway then, but a few seconds later she could hear Cissy's light steps moving to the door. The wood swung inward, and the older witch stepped back startled when she saw her niece waiting less than a foot away. "Jen! I didn't realize you were—"

The words cut off when Jen raised her hand, trapping the woman inside a paralyzing spell. She had known Cissy for eight years; she knew the feel of her magic.  _This_  individual's core was different, similar but not the same and studded throughout with shards of ice. "Who are you, and what have you done with my aunt?"

"What are you talking about?!" the imposter demanded, stretching her neck as if to wiggle out of her bindings keeping the rest of body completely motionless. "Jen, it's me! Let me go!"

"Prove it."

The woman stared at her for several seconds before inclining her head with a scowl. "Look for yourself."

"Loki, check her out." The raven nodded and flapped over to the other witch's shoulder to get a closer look and smell. That underway, she extended her mental probes and slipped inside; immediately she was bombarded by memories. Of Cissy watching her hex Sirius after getting pranked. Of dinners with the whole family, the air filled with laughter. Of her when she was a child, their naked hips grinding together. Of her lying unmoving in Hogwarts's infirmary, white blindfold stained with blood.

Loki scrambled down Cissy's arm and hopped back onto Jen's shoulder, only reinforcing her conclusion. If he had noticed anything wrong, he would have immediately started attacking or at least been agitated. Lowering her hand, she released the spell that trapped the woman. "Ah."

"' _Ah_ '? That's all you have to say for this?" her aunt demanded in a cold tone.

"Your whole room suddenly disappeared from the wards, and your magic feels different now than it did yesterday." Though why that was, she still had no idea. She shrugged sheepishly. "When that happens, I have to consider that I could be dealing with an imposter, and from there where the real you could have disappeared to.  _Especially_  after your misadventure this summer."

Cissy's stern expression had softened slightly during her explanation, and now the older witch huffed through her nose. "And while magical signatures are  _supposed_  to be immutable, there is any number of ways someone could mimic my appearance." Pursing her lips, she continued, "Don't misunderstand; I'm still  _very_  unhappy about being assaulted – and in my own room, no less – but perhaps it wasn't  _totally_ unwarranted. We will  _still_  be having a talk about your actions later."

 _Unpleasant, but I suppose that's only fair_. "All right," Jen agreed slowly, "but that doesn't answer my biggest question. What were you just doing that changed your magic?"

At this, Cissy flushed slightly, and Jen's eyebrows rose in surprise. "What I was doing?" the woman repeated in a slightly higher than normal voice. "Nothing. Nothing at all. And shouldn't you be getting ready for the ball tonight by now?"

" _Aunt Cissy_ …"

The piebald witch glanced down in embarrassment and pulled the door all the way open. Now more worried than shocked, Jen stepped through and looked around.  _If this void weren't still interfering with my sonar, this would be so much easi… Oh_. "Auntie? Is that what I think it is?"

The  _'that'_  in question was a dark wooden platform slightly wider than the woman's lap, runes inlaid in white running around the edges. On the two corners nearest the wall stood a pair of candles, the wicks still smoking slightly and the shafts glued to the wood by piles of molten wax, and more to the middle were a silver-framed mirror and a crystal tetrahedron, the top point edging from a clear-white to the faintest shade of blue. Her gaze roved over the items, and for a split second she thought she saw a pale visage and a black eye staring out from within the mirror; another look proved it was just a reflection of the wall.

"Er… Well…" Cissy ran her hand through the white streak in her hair and sighed. "Do you remember how, last year when Andi and I told you about the Dark Powers, she mentioned that some people worshipped them? Um…"

"Which one?" Jen asked as she gave the pyramid a closer examination.

Her aunt's expression relaxed at the pure curiosity of her question, or more likely just the lack of horror or accusation. "The Unseelie Queen. I began following Her shortly after I married Lucius. She is said to look out for those who are lost or sold into bondage, which I certainly felt like at the time. I was praying to Her to protect Draco; he is in more danger than he knows, and She guards children zealously, so…"

Jen smirked at that. "A pedophile worshipping a protector of children?"

"Yes, I am  _well_  aware of the irony," Cissy answered with a roll of her eyes. "That is one of the biggest reasons I slake my lusts with Muggles rather than magical children. At least, I do so when I'm  _aware_  they are magical," she added with a mild glare at the retired prostitute. "By doing so, I avoid hurting anyone, and thereby keep from offending Her."

 _Whatever helps you sleep at night_ , she thought with another smile. Unlike the rest of their family, who all saw the bigotry of the youngest Black Sister as something abhorrent, she merely found it amusing. Willfully ignorant, perhaps, but amusing nonetheless.

"I have to admit, you're taking this surprisingly well," came the elder witch's tentative prompting.

"Not  _too_  surprising," Jen corrected. Considering for a moment, she lied, "Elsie worshipped Death, had ever since she was a child. When she took me in, she all but required me to take part, as well."

Her aunt hummed to herself even as one of the lumps of ice in her core melted away, allowing the threads to relax. Within an hour, Jen doubted she would have been able to tell anything strange at all had taken place. "Is that where you were early this morning? I couldn't sleep," Cissy explained to her raised eyebrow, "and so I decided to peek in on you and Sirius while I was already up. Imagine my surprise when you weren't in your bed, or anywhere else in the house."

"…Yes." She shrugged sheepishly. "I don't worship him regularly, but I  _do_  perform a couple of devotions a year. Just in case, you understand."

"That I do. Maybe I can join you next time."

"I'd really rather you didn't." The woman lost her smile and dropped her eyes at that immediate rejection, so Jen continued twisting the truth. "The traditions Elsie taught me are a bit…  _messy_. I just don't want you to look at me differently because you saw me rip off a chicken's head and slather my face and chest with its blood."

Her gruesome description turn Cissy's face a rather unflattering shade of green. "Ah. In that case, I shall leave you to it. Thank you for telling me about your beliefs, though." Her aunt smiled sadly. "I should have known that if anyone in the family would accept my own, it would be you."

"Aunt Andi probably would, too. The way she talked about it, I think she already suspects."

"Perhaps I will speak with her about it later tonight, then." Shaking herself from her musings, Cissy pushed the girl and the bird toward the open door. "But enough of this. You still have a ball you need to get prepared for. A hostess  _cannot_  be late to her own party."

* * *

"Oh, this place is so beautiful!"

"I  _know_. Who knew the Blacks were hiding such a jewel from everyone?"

"Maybe we can convince them to hold this again next year."

"Not bloody likely," Sirius grumbled under his breath.

Jen just rolled her eyes at his reaction to the compliments drifting toward them. For someone who was normally such a show-off, her godfather was acting remarkably withdrawn. She nudged her elbow into his side. "And here I thought you'd  _enjoy_  the chance to be center stage. And the place  _does_  look good."

"It had better," he muttered back, plastering on a smile for the next couple to step out of the Floo, "especially after all the work we did on it."

She had been equally as astonished as any of their guests when she arrived at Black Hall an hour before. From all her visits home on the weekends, she had gathered a progress report of sorts about how the restoration of their country estate was going, and thanks to Sirius's displeased mutterings, she had honestly expected it to resemble a disaster area. What she found, however, was anything but.

The foyer was all dark-stained wood walls with a mosaic of their crest on the floor, giving way to green marble tiles where it transitioned to the ballroom proper. A high ceiling made the room appear even larger than it already was, and the clever placement of the arches created several areas – each demarcated with a vase full of white orchids on a stand – where the muddle of conversations sorted themselves out into discernible voices and words. Along one wall was a table filled with a variety of hors d'oeuvres, continuously restocked by Kreacher and two other elves they had rented for the night, and serving trays charmed to hover at waist-height meandered through the crowd to make sure everyone had a full flute of champagne at all times.

Not that she had had a chance to enjoy any of it yet. Practically the minute she and Sirius arrived, they had stationed themselves in the foyer so they could usher in all their guests. Every noble who entered – be they Dark, Neutral, or even Light – had to be greeted with warm words and small talk. That was perhaps the oddest part of the night; that Sirius, who always claimed to hate  _'pointless social niceties'_ , knew enough personal details about every single person who walked through the grate. During a short break, he leaned over and whispered, "This is how your aunt earns her keep."

Which… explained a lot, actually.

Of course, most of these conversations were incredibly  _boring_. The doughy-faced minor nobleman they were talking to currently, for instance. Perhaps it was due to growing up straddling the two worlds, but she could not for the life of her understand how anyone could make a profit, let alone a fortune, from importing Muggle items when it was so much easier just to walk into a store and buy something off the shelf, cutting out the middle-man entirely. It was not as if the goblins wouldn't happily exchange galleons for pounds sterling, albeit for an exorbitant fee.

The fire flared green, and the Potters stepped out, their gazes quickly fixating on her.

 _Then again, Aunt Andi_ _ **is**_ _always telling me I need to meet new people._  "So Lord Callahan," she prompted, "how exactly do you get around having to pay Muggle taxes for all these goods your company brings in?"

"W-Well, sometimes we do have to pay a bit, but most of our dealings are more… under the table, you know," replied the flustered wizard, his cheeks stained red. "It helps that we also do some exporting with them, which earns us quite a bit of favor with the companies. And since the Muggles we work with directly are all  _'in the know'_ , we can turn a tidy sum without running afoul of the Statute of Secrecy. It's an interesting legal grey area…"

The Potters, instead of speaking with Sirius and then moving on as she had half-heartedly hoped they might, stood back while the pudgy wizard droned on and on about the minutiae of his business model. It was not until another three Houses were waiting in line that he realized his error and scrambled off.

 _Though this works just as well_ , Jen realized.  _Now, unless they want to be seen as rude, they'll have to say hello and then move along. It won't stop them from approaching me once the ball proper starts, but I'll take any reprieve I can get_.

"Lord and Lady Potter," Sirius said formally. "Good evening. Be welcomed at our hearth and under our roof."

"We thank you and your House for your hospitality," James answered.

Clearly reaching for some topic that would not step on any toes, her godfather asked, "Can we expect to see your son later tonight?"

James hesitated for a moment too long before shaking his head. "I'm afraid not; he is…  _indisposed_  at the moment. Augusta was kind enough to volunteer to care for him, so neither she nor Neville will be attending, either."

"I am sorry to hear that. I hope he returns to good health soon."

The Potters gave him polite smiles at that, and then they turned to her. She pulled on the skirt of her burgundy dress and dipped into a shallow curtsy before either could hold out their hands or – Baron forbid – try to hug her. A clearing of someone's throat behind them shook them from their uncertainty and chased them away into the ballroom.

"I've clearly been spending too much time around you and Davis," Susan commented when the rest of the line had cleared out, and then the redhead embraced her while Sirius and Madam Bones exchanged the traditional greeting. "I almost found their discomfort  _funny_."

Jen grinned, grateful for the levity. "And just think: we aren't nearly done with you yet. Soon enough, you'll be throwing out sarcasm left and right and cracking up at gallows humor."

"Spare me that, I beg you," Madam Bones sighed dramatically, giving her a curtsy that she quickly returned. "She's been trouble enough ever since she got home. I've been tempted to ship her off to the Abbotts for the break, but then I wouldn't be able to counter these bad habits she's been picking up lately."

"Auntie!" Susan cried in a scandalized tone.

Smirking a bit, the Black witch replied in a faux-serious tone, "I would promise you that we will do better in keeping her away from whatever rapscallions she has been associating with, but you know how she is. Always finding trouble somewhere or another."

The witch in question stuck her nose in the air and sniffed haughtily. "I don't have to put up with this slander." Spinning on her heel, she stomped into the ballroom.

Sirius laughed and jerked his head toward the door. "Go ahead and follow your friend, Jen. You've been standing here with me for the past hour, and everything's going to kick off in a minute, anyway."

"Thanks, Sirius." She gave him a quick hug that lit up his eyes – and her reaction was  _entirely_  for this reason, not because she was just  _that grateful_  for an excuse to leave – and hustled into the enormous room. Susan was easy to find, hovering just inside the entrance. "It's a lot to take in, isn't it?" she asked, watching the milling crowds.

"Yeah," came the Badger's breathy reply. "I knew there were a bunch of people in the Wizengamot, but in the Chamber, it didn't look like it was  _this_  many."

"Well, it's not just the Wizengamot members here," she pointed out. "There's their wives and husbands, and their unattached children our age or older, and I think I met a couple of first cousins and mistresses and—"

Susan's tinkling laughter cut her off. "You're making that up! There's no way way anyone would bring their," she looked around, blush covering her whole face, and lowered her voice, "their  _mistresses_  to something like this."

"Hmm. Maybe you have a point." The older teen nodded, and Jen's grin widened. "Having to deal with this rigmarole would sure drive the mistresses away to find someone less stuffy. Those women must have been the paid whores."

"Jen!"

The large clock set high up in one wall chose that moment to chime loudly, and Sirius walked in, accompanied by Madam Bones. The old dog's smirk meant he was fully prepared and hoping for the murmurs that immediately sprang up; Jen had to wonder if her dismissal had really been as generous as he made it out to be. He climbed onto the stage that had been set up in a nearby corner for the musicians: primarily cellists and violinists, though Jen could spy a harp in one corner. The music selection tonight would be nothing like that played at the Yule Ball the previous year.

"Wizards and witches of the Wizengamot," Sirius's voice boomed, no doubt thanks to the amplifying spell wrapped around his neck, "welcome to the annual Winter Solstice Ball!"

The assembled nobility broke into applause at that announcement, and after a moment or five, he raised his hand for silence. "Thank you, thank you. I hope you will all enjoy your time here at Black Hall, and I'm sure that will start quicker the sooner I stop talking. So eat, drink, be merry"—his eyes twinkled for a moment—"and if you are  _too_  merry by the end of the night, please have someone Side-Along you home. Maestro, if you would?"

A jaunty tune filled the air, and Jen quickly pushed her way toward the stage. According to those adults in the family who had been to this function before, the dancing was always started by the Head of whatever House was hosting the ball that year. Normally it would be the Lord and Lady dancing, or assuming said Head was single, his or her escort for the night, but as Jen was old enough to attend, the role of partner fell to her. She dipped into yet another curtsy, the deepest of the night, and resigned herself to the aching legs that would surely be present the next morning if this kept up.

Sirius returned her greeting with a bow and guided her into position. As they began the waltz, she smiled and taunted in a whisper, "You know, if you wanted to escort Amelia Bones to the dance, you should have just asked her."

"Now I know where her niece learned all those  _'bad habits'_ ," he shot back  _sotto voce_. She chuckled softly, and he added, "No, that won't happen. Maybe once upon a time, but I'm afraid that train left the station years ago."

"Really?" she asked in surprise. "I meant that as a joke. Did you really carry a torch for her?"

The next pair of dancers – the white-haired Lord and Lady McElroy, her being the oldest voting member of the Wizengamot – fell in step behind them. "Not really," Sirius answered. "What I meant was that back in the day, I chased every skirt in sight. Now, though? Sad as it is to admit, this prime stallion's days of being put out to stud are over."

"Thank you  _so_  much for that mental image."

He threw back his head and barked out a laugh, and as if the room was waiting for his signal, numerous other couples stepped onto the dance floor. They continued the dance for several more minutes, and then the music ended. Sirius gave her a second bow and stepped away, presumably to hit the snack table or talk politics.

"My lady, may I have this dance?"

Jen quirked one eyebrow and slowly turned around. "Scion Malfoy.  _This_  is a surprise."

"I don't see why." Now she was  _sure_  something dastardly was in the works, for the blond had never tried his hand at oily ingratiation before. That he was unpracticed in this form of deception was equally clear by how poorly his adopted persona fit him. It was as if he was trying to parrot another, likely his father, but had only recently started paying attention to the lessons. Before she could turn him down, the rest of the room resumed swaying to the musician's beat, and he held out his emerald-clad arms pointedly.

"Very well," she replied, forcibly keeping a snarl out of her voice; it was harder than she would have expected. They began the second number, and she was reluctantly impressed by his skill on the floor. After a couple of minutes, she commanded, "Don't keep me in suspense. What are you really after?"

Malfoy's facial expression was even less adroit at hiding his true purpose than his voice. "What am I after? Can't I just want to spend some time with my baby cousin?"

"No,  _cousin_ , you can't. We both know you are here for some ulterior motive, and the only thing I want to know is whether it was your idea, your father's, or your father's master's." He twitched at that last suggestion, which put a crafty smile on her face. "So it was at the Dark Lord's behest, hmm? How interesting. And confusing; I find it strange that he would send  _you_  to speak with me."

"And why is that?" he drawled, face pinched in anger at her insult.

"Why, because there is literally  _nothing_  he could send you for that could not be accomplished by someone else, and more successfully, too. It if were to issue another invitation to join him, he would have been better served by sending either a member of his inner circle like your father"—here Malfoy scowled—"or a Death Eater no one else knows about, as a show of power and trust. If he wanted to apologize for his previous actions—"

"The Dark Lord? Apologize to  _you_?" the teenaged wizard hissed. "Your arrogance is unbelievable."

"Yes,  _apologize_." She smirked again. "I would expect  _him_ , at least, to know there are some people you don't want to make enemies of unnecessarily. If that were what he wanted, again he would have sent someone important, not some Markless peon."

"How  _dare_ —"

She continued, heedless of his seething emotions. "The final purpose I can guess that he would want to communicate is that he plans on threatening me. And if  _that_  were the case, he'd send someone who was… well,  _actually_  intimidating."

"You think I'm not intimidating?" Malfoy growled. The music picked up in a faster beat. "For a Ravenclaw,  _you're_  incredibly  _stupid_.  _I'm_  the one standing right next to you. It would be so  _easy_  to get rid of you right now…"

Jen laughed, actually  _laughed_ , at that. "No, I'm afraid you're really not. Partly that's because I've already proven I can handle a much bigger threat than you could pose—"

"If you think those Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs are a good comparison—"

"—and partly it's because I could counterattack before you even had your wand in your hand, and do so in a way you could never defend yourself against. Why, right this second I can think of thirty ways to kill you where you stand…" The music spiked, and he pushed her away in a twirl. A moment later, he reeled her back into his grasp, and she continued, "…and still be able to claim it as an accident or, at most, self-defense. Maybe in a few more years, I might give your claims more weight, but for now? No, you aren't a threat, and I suggest you keep your head down if you ever want to become one."

The music slowed and came to a halt. Stepping away, Malfoy gave her a bow that was little more than a minute tilt of the head, and she replied with a mocking dip that she then turned into a swirling about-face. She could barely keep her serious expression up for the brief time it took her to escape the dance floor.

 _That would be so adorable if he weren't such a little prick_ , she thought, finally allowing herself to smile darkly.  _It's like watching a puppy barking at a full-grown bear. He'd get torn apart in seconds if the bear didn't find the sight more amusing than irritating._

 _Although, he never did give me Voldemort's message_ , she realized. That wiped the grin off her face. _That_ _ **could**_ _have been important. Possibly. On the other hand, what I said to him still stands. There is nothing Voldemort could want to tell me that wouldn't get a more receptive ear if carried by someone else. Which only makes me wonder even more what_ …

Jen could not hold back a sigh when she felt someone trying – unsuccessfully – to sneak up behind her unnoticed. "What do you want, Lady Potter?"

* * *

 **Creole Corner:**  Curse you! You  _and_  your maker!  _Why_ does this have to be white magic?!  **Also,** _ **Bijou Baron**_ **means "Baron's Jewel".**

**I wish I could claim credit for my depiction of the Resurrection Stone's true purpose, but I first saw it pointed out in chapter 14 of Publicola's story** _**Wait, What?** _ **, a collection of one-shots where the HP crew examines the horror present throughout the series with open eyes. I recommend everyone read it, that specific chapter at the very least.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	26. Change of Plans

**DarowdrynofArcadia:**  The reason Danny's horcrux appeared as a "fleshy little worm" is that the soul fragment was bound to the actually scar tissue in his forehead, and that is what Jen was summoning to her. The "shred of darkness" in other stories is supposed to represent the disembodied soul itself, not the container.

 **Jack Inqu:**  One thing I want to make clear: Jen doesn't have  _'almost all'_  of the soul jars. She  _does_  have all of them, and they've all been destroyed. The only piece of Voldemort's soul still running around is himself.

 **JBails:**  Uh, we've still got a  _long_  ways to go before we're done. This is the middle of year 5, and my plans run all the way through the end of  _year 7_. If you want to wait until I'm done with the story in its entirety, you'll be waiting for a few years.

**Merry Christmas, everyone! I wish I could give you guys another long chapter as a present, but I'm afraid my muse burnt herself out last time, and two weeks just wasn't enough time for her to totally recover. We'll see how she feels later, but considering it will contain at least one scene that I've been drooling over for a while, I have a good feeling about next chapter.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did news that Voldemort's first public appearance following his resurrection featured him fleeing from the Ministry with his tail between his legs decrease the public's fear even an iota? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 26  
** **Change of Plans**

Looking over the opulence of the ballroom, Lily could not help but regret that she was not in the state of mind to properly enjoy her surroundings, one of the few bright spots about the Solstice Ball. Normally she had plenty of time to appreciate the decor; James did not dance, instead preferring to talk politics with his peers, and rare was the wizard who would invite her onto the dance floor despite her well-publicized blood status, so examining the room and watching the other guests were the sole forms of entertainment left to her. That and ignoring the insults the Pureblood witches could not resist launching at her whenever she came in hearing range.

Try as she might, she also could not avoid looking at the behavior of these  _supposedly_  grown women in light of how the blood purists at Hogwarts had acted when they were teenagers. It was not a flattering comparison.

She sighed as the reason for her preoccupation strode off the dance floor. Ever since sobering up earlier that morning, she had been debating with herself over the wisdom of her plan. Selling out her husband's political ambitions; what new low had she fallen to? Not only that, but her actions would wind up supporting the Dark Sect, people just like those witches who took some sick pleasure from saying such ugly things about her behind their perfect smiles. People who, by and large, were honestly delighted at the thought of her and her children dying because their existence as magical but non-Pureblood offended the sensibilities of the  _'right and proper'_  individuals. That was the philosophy You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters espoused, for God's sake!  _What was I_ _ **thinking**_ _when I came up with this ridiculous scheme?_ , a small voice in the back of her head asked in disbelief.

The smile that crossed Jenny's face as she watched the dancers made her mind up for her, though, and she skirted the edge of the crowd.

Approaching cautiously – Lily doubted her appearance would  _scare_  her daughter, but it might still send the girl back into the crowd in order to avoid her – she was about to clear her throat and announce herself when Jenny sighed. Not even turning around, the black-haired witch demanded, "What do you want, Lady Potter?"

 _Well,_ _ **that's**_ _certainly a great start to the conversation_ , Lily thought with a sigh of her own. She stepped closer to her daughter's side, three or four feet of space still separating them. "Scion Black. Your manor is quite incredible."

"You have our thanks." Lily cast her mind about for a safe transition to the topic she wanted to discuss, but again Jenny preempted her. A flick of the girl's wrist caused her wand to appear in her hand, and the woman could only marvel at the tailoring of her daughter's dress. The slim sleeves gave no indication at all that there was enough room to fit the focus, let alone any kind of holster. Silently waving her wand, the girl then all but snarled, "What is it with you Potters and being incapable of understanding the concept of  _'Go away_ '?"

"I'd like to point out that I'm only a Potter by marriage," she commented lightly, only to wince a moment later as she realized how that could be interpreted.

Strangely, Jenny shot her a quick look from the corner of her eyes before returning her gaze to the dancing throng. "A good point," she muttered to herself, and then continued louder, "So if you aren't trying to bring me back to the fold, as it were, why  _are_  you here? To apologize for your husband's behavior again, as you did last year at King's Cross?"

"No. He made his bed, and this time he can lie in it. Although, what I wanted to talk to you about  _does_ pertain to him." Lily took a deep breath; this was the point of no return. What she was about to do could never be undone. "Have you heard about the legislation he's helping to write?"

"No…" Jenny answered, curiosity creeping into her voice.

A glimmer of hope began welling in her breast, and the redhead continued. "He and Lord Pickering both despise that the Dark Houses have been able to claim various enchanted items that would otherwise be illegal as family heirlooms. They feel that changing the label makes them no less dangerous, and so they should be confiscated and destroyed." She licked her lips nervously. "To that end, they are drafting a bill that would redefine the term  _'heirloom'_  to no longer include any object that possesses an enchantment that would otherwise be classified as a curse or hex, nor would it cover anything whose charms or enchantments would allow it to be used as a weapon."

"Well," Jenny answered with a quirk of her lips, " _that's_ an interesting change. Stupid in the extreme, but interesting nonetheless." At Lily's confused blink, she explained, "You do realize that would eventually have to be expanded to include such things as self-lighting candles and ever-sharp kitchen knives and collapsable cauldrons, too, right? People are predators, vicious and temperamental beasts; give us the proper incentive, and we'll figure out how to turn literally  _anything_  into a weapon. It may not be much better than using our bare hands, but it can and eventually  _will_  be done," the girl concluded with an dismissive shrug.

Watching and listening to her daughter's retort, Lily could start to understand what James had been trying to tell her early in October when she pressured him on how well his plan to get closer to their child had been working. There was something cold and dark in those purple eyes as her own flesh and blood expounded on a remarkably cynical view of humanity. She, like Alice and Marlene and James and Dumbledore, tried to see the best in people; it was her most closely held belief that people were always capable of improving themselves, even if they needed a bit of a push to get started. It was why she had given Severus a second chance after he called her a Mudblood at the end of their fifth year, and he had found her on the Express not two days later and apologized profusely for his atrocious behavior and had never acted that way again, so clearly there was  _something_  to her opinions.

To hear Jenny condemn those same people she wanted to see uplifted as unthinking animals was… disturbing, to say the least.

 _Then again, considering how Petunia admitted to treating her, I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised that she doesn't have a complimentary view of people in general_.

Shaking off her dismay as best she could – though she was going to have another  _chat_  with her sister in the very near future to find out what other surprises she should expect from her daughter's horrifying excuse for a childhood – she continued shakily, "Yes, well… I doubt the law would really be extended to cover things like  _that_ , but Pickering also suggested they include secondary foci in general and proposed a rather  _involved_  process to go about getting specific objects exempted. Considering how you used one against, er—"

"Used one to defend myself from the criminally inclined individuals who tried to assault and murder me?" the younger witch asked with a sharp, cruel smile. "Yes, getting rid of secondary foci is  _definitely_ the best way to make things more peaceful. No more pesky girls pointing out the hypocrisy of the Light's actions for the whole country to see. And would I be correct in assuming that the  _'involved process'_  you mentioned would be considerably simplified for your political allies?"

"That… would probably not be an unreasonable assumption, no," she admitted quietly. "I doubt it would be  _simple_ , necessarily, but you have to acknowledge that members of the Light  _are_  far less likely to have those kinds of dark artefacts."

" _'Dark artefacts'_ ," came Jenny's scoffing retort. "You just hate the idea of casting magic with anything other than a wand because it challenges your narrow-minded world view."

She hissed back, "Secondary foci can be  _dangerous_! All it takes is one of the runes getting dented or the material becoming tarnished, and suddenly you have a  _bomb_  strapped to your arm! And it's not like they are made by people with a reputation for quality work…" Realizing what she was saying, Lily squeezed her eyes shut. The information James had passed on to her a few weeks ago about the perils of secondary foci had driven home just how often Jenny was playing with fire, but her daughter would never see it that way. Rather than concern, her words would be taken and twisted until they were just as patronizing as the rebukes she had already experienced from James.

"Hmm." She chanced a short look, and what she saw surprised her. It was not anger or distrust that greeted her gaze, but a smirk of mocking amusement. "Never fear, I have the  _utmost_  faith in my foci's reliability. There is one thing that I cannot help but wonder about, however; why are you giving  _me_  this information instead of Sirius or Aunt Narcissa if you are truly so concerned?"

Her Gryffindor bluntness caused her to answer with complete honesty. " _They_  aren't the ones whose trust I'm trying to earn."

Jenny blinked, apparently blindsided by  _that_  particular response. "I… see. And why, may I ask,  _should_  I trust you? You have, to be blunt, a rather  _pathetic_  record in that field."

"I… Well…" A shrug signaled her helplessness; she had not planned for a question like this. Honestly, she had expected to be blown off completely, though she had held out a little desperate hope that her information might gain her a warmer reception. "I can't deny that, nor can I give a reason to trust me on this other than that I'm telling the truth. If you really need proof, though," she added, an idea forming – it was completely crazy, but no more so than the one that brought her here in the first place – "I would be willing to make a magical vow—"

"No." Her head rocked back at that sudden rejection. Seeing her confusion, Jenny deigned to elaborate, "All that would tell me is that you believe you're telling the truth, and that's not enough. Not when one quick spell could make think you are being honest when in fact it is nothing more than a performance you and your husband came up with to lure me closer. No, to trust that you're telling me the truth about this, I would need to trust you already, and quite frankly,  _Lady Potter_ , I don't. Not in the slightest."

"And there's nothing I can do to change your mind?" she all but begged. Being blown off for the things she had done was one thing, but for unfounded paranoia?  _James and Danny sowed these seeds_ , her inner doubt reminded her,  _and now you are the one to reap the harvest. You didn't want her to paint you with the same brush, but your inaction led to it, anyway. Maybe if you hadn't been so indecisive…_

"No, there isn't." Jenny waved her wand, dismissing whatever privacy charm she had erected. She strode off, looking over her shoulder for just an instant before returning to the dance floor. "Enjoy the party."

* * *

" _Crucio_."

Voldemort rubbed the skin above his nasal slits where the bridge of his nose used to be, wishing not for the first time that he had a talent for divination. Maybe if he could see the future, he would have been able to avoid his current frustration. After another second, he ended the curse. "I. Am.  _Not_. Happy."

The Death Eaters assembled before him all stood absolutely still, as if they feared that the slightest hint of movement might draw his wrath down upon them. It was not the first time they had seen him use the Cruciatus to express his displeasure, but it was a rare enough occurrence that it surprised them every time. Of course, the reason for their reaction could also be that they knew he only took them to task with the Unforgivable when he was truly  _enraged_. He glared down at the quivering, mewling half-wit curled up on the floor before him. "Lucius."

"Yes, my lord?" the blond wizard hastily answered from his position at the end of the line of Inner Circle members.

"Remind me, what did I tell you your spawn's mission was?"

The elder Malfoy's face was hidden behind the silver mask, forcing the Dark Lord to wonder if his question had caused the man's customary arrogant countenance to falter. He hoped so. "He was to gather information on the Black girl and report back to you."

Voldemort nodded. "And is that what you told him, in turn?"

"It was, my lord."

"I see." He turned and walked a few steps toward his chair. Whirling around again, he smiled, though the expression was completely bereft of humor. "Then please, explain to me how your heir could have  _possibly_  interpreted that clear command to mean that he should  _threaten her in my name_?!"

Lucius cringed slightly, just as he had when his child had admitted his actions from the previous night in front of the rest of the Death Eaters. "I do not have a suitable answer," he whispered.

"How unfortunate," Voldemort drawled. Looking again at the spoiled brat, he ordered, "Stand up,  _boy_. If whimpering on the floor is all you're good for, perhaps I should just kill you myself and spare your father the trouble."

The twitching wreck slowly made his way to his feet, and Voldemort seriously considered going through with his threat. Even the animals he had tortured with this curse as a boy had been better off afterward than this insufferable dandy-in-training, and after much longer than just a couple of seconds! "Please… my lord…"

" _Your lord_?" Disparaging disbelief was thick in his voice. "You presume much if you believe that  _I_  am your lord. You would count yourself among the ranks of my followers? Every wizard and witch standing here today has proven their devotion to the Pureblood Cause, all at least once and many several times over. I would trust  _any one of them_  without hesitation to carry out my will." Throughout the ranks, chests swelled at his public proclamation. It was not often he showered them as a group with praise, and that scarcity only gave it greater value. "You dare to think yourself their equal? You could not even accomplish the simple task I assigned you."

"But it was just Black!" the boy protested weakly. "She's  _nothing_! Why do you care so much about her?"

 _Because_ _ **she**_ _has worth. A budding necromancer is a valuable prize, and her relation to Bellatrix makes her even more important_. He shook his head. It had been a great surprise when not only Bellatrix, but Rudolphus and Rabastan as well, had denied that the woman had ever given birth, but it was hard to argue with reality. Far more likely, she had simply hidden the evidence of her dalliances from her husband and brother-in-law. And as for her own protests that she was childless… Well, even after three months, the Death Eaters he had rescued from Azkaban were still not entirely  _stable_. Memory loss would not be unusual, and considering that Bellatrix could not remember large portions of her childhood, either, it was actually somewhat expected in hindsight.  _Irritating_ , but still expected.

No one ever said that taking over the country was  _easy_. If things were going too well, he was clearly doing something wrong.

Still, he could not reveal the true reason he wanted to know everything he could about Black: if anyone could figure out how to disrupt and destroy the construct he had grown around his previously disembodied soul, it would be her. At least Dumbledore would have to fight him face-to-face to defeat him. "Surely your father will give you the answer to  _that_  question. Well, Lucius?"

"I… I am afraid that I do not understand the importance of the Black girl to your plans, either, my lord. She is an able young witch, true, but…"

 _Do you truly not see, or do you simply not_ _ **wish**_ _to see?_ "How unfortunate. Alecto," he hissed softly, causing the witch to stand straighter. "How often in our first revolution did I give you or others orders that did not make sense at the time? And how often did my reasons become clear afterward?"

"You would give us orders like that sometimes," she slowly agreed, "and usually they made perfect sense when it was all over."

"And  _that_  is why," Voldemort said, glaring at the Malfoys while jabbing one spidery finger at her. "It is not the information itself that was of the greater importance, but that he completed his task faithfully and unfailingly." The Dark Lord shook his head. "You volunteered your son to join our ranks. You said that he would be a worthy fighter for the Cause. So I gave him a test, something  _simple_  that I doubted he would have any problems accomplishing. Imagine my  _disappointment_  at hearing that he could  _not_."

Lucius began tentatively, "But he  _did_  bring you information about the girl, even if it was only distant observation. I assure you that he will do better next time—"

" _'Next time'_?" he repeated incredulously. "What could possibly make you think there will  _be_  a  _next time_? He has already supplied sufficient evidence that he does not have the ambition necessary to apply himself diligently to the tasks assigned to him, nor does he have the cunning to find out vital information. We have set ourselves on the road to revolution, Lucius, and we do not have the luxury of catering to spoiled brats incapable of bearing their own weight. No, there will be no  _next time_ ; I have learned what I needed to know. Your son does not have what it takes to be a Death Eater.

"Timothy." The younger Nott stepped forward and stood at attention. "You asked that your own son be afforded the opportunity to join this army as well, correct?"

"I did, my master."

"Good. I have an assignment for him. Have him speak with Black and offer amends for the  _grievous_  error Lucius's son made." A flick of his wand had the boy in question thrown at his father's feet, and considering how the elder blond was all but quivering in fury, he would not want to be in the brat's shoes once the meeting was over. "Now, are there any  _other_  reports that are ready to be given?"  _And by Merlin, they had better be good news_.

Walden Macnair cleared his throat. "The envoy you had me send to the giants has finally returned, the giants in tow. They are currently stationed near Dover and waiting for your orders."

"Excellent. Have you had such success with the werewolves, Greyback?"

"Not… exactly," the wiry half-human answered reluctantly. "Some of the packs have answered your call, but lots of others said they want proof that this war will turn out differently than it did last time before they'll join."

Voldemort's lips thinned. That was… unfortunate. Of all the non-human species he had sent his followers to court, it was the werewolves he had counted on the most, though not necessarily for their numbers. The vampires had returned word that they would only side with him if the wolves were there, and the harpies said  _they_  would stay out of the fight unless the  _vampires_ were willing to put up their own troops. Unfortunately, he desperately needed the harpies to provide air support, and of all his inhuman forces, it would be the vampires who could replenish their ranks the fastest.

At least he had the giants and the trolls on board, and the mere presence of the Dementors standing guard at Alecto's side had been enough for the lamia to have second thoughts about rejecting his proposal outright as they had in the previous war. Whether they would merely forward supplies or actually contribute warriors to the battle was another story altogether.

"I see. And what exactly did they mention they would consider to be such proof?" he demanded in a soft, dangerous voice.

The werewolf fearfully licked his lips. "They… uh… didn't really say much on that score. Just something that would show that you're completely serious about this, was what they said. They don't like that you're going around all sneaky-like instead of chasing your enemies down and tearing them apart."

"They don't like me being sneaky," he repeated. An idea started to blossom in his mind, and a wicked smile adorned his face. "Well, I suppose if it's a public demonstration they want…"

* * *

With a small huff of exertion, Hit Wizard Robert Duffy approached the small alcove on Diagon Alley where his eight-man team had made their impromptu base. "Captain, another round of the Alley complete.  _Still_ nothing going on." He stomped his boots on the ground to knock the snow off and slipped inside the warming and keyed Notice-Me-Not charms anchored to the overhang. The wizard he had addressed merely nodded, not looking away from the map of the shopping district he was examining, and Duffy sighed again before running his hands over his bald head.

Just  _once_ , he would like to be able to have time off on the days leading up to Christmas. Three years running, and every time, he had been assigned some duty that kept him from returning home until his two boys were already fed, bathed, and in bed. Thank Merlin for Kathy; without his wonderful wife taking care of the house and the kids, he didn't know what he would ever do.

"I know it's frustrating," the Senior Hit Wizard replied at last, finally giving him the curtesy of meeting his eyes, "but you know what Jameson said as well as I do. We have to maintain a constant presence here in case the same people who attacked the DoM or Azkaban decide to hit the Alley."

"Cap, it's been almost four months since then, and nothing's happened," he complained. "And even if those guys  _were_  still around, what are the chances they'd do anything two days before Christmas? They have better things to do with their time, and so do we."

Mikkelsen raised his hands in a  _'What can you do?'_ gesture, and Duffy shook his head. He knew his superior did not want to be here any more than he did, and if the Head Hit Wizard's order wasn't enough by itself, everyone knew this command came straight from Madam Bones herself. That did  _not_  mean, however, that he had to  _like_  it.

At least their team was only stationed here for one more week. Get through that, and they could return to some  _real_  work.

 _BOOM_.

The entire Alley shook from the force of the explosion, and a giant cloud of dust that had once been a building storefront appeared over the crowd of shoppers. Shouts filled the air as the civilians ran away, shoving the people in front of them to the ground and trampling them underfoot. Duffy and Mikkelsen shared a look of incredulity, then the two were running down the street, wands out and the transfigurations disguising their thick, black Hit Wizard robes shattering. As they rushed to the destroyed building, the other six members joined them. "Patricks, Sizemore!" Mikkelsen yelled. "Go inside and look for survivors! Duffy, get anyone hanging around out of here! If you find someone who looks suspicious, arrest them and we'll sort it out later! The rest of you, check the buildings next door and make sure they're not also—"

"Wizards and witches of Britain!" interrupted a  _Sonorus_ -ed voice. The dust hanging in the air began to dissipate as a wind spell whipped through the cloud, and as visibility improved, the Hit Wizards could see a figure coming into greater focus. The unknown wizard advanced a couple of feet, and as his charm finally cleared the sky, all eight of them gasped in horror. The bomber was tall and spindly, his skin inhumanly white and his nose nonexistent, and eyes red like blood pierced through them and held them still. What few civilians had hung around in morbid curiosity now fled screaming as if the hounds of hell were nipping at their heels.

Britain's most terrible Dark Lord, You-Know-Who himself, smirked at the mayhem he had caused. "I'm  _baaack_."

* * *

**In book five, Lupin said Voldemort was gathering** _**"an army of dark creatures"** _ **. Well, if** _**that's** _ **the case, I had better give him a legitimate army then, hadn't I?**

**Silently Watches out.**


	27. Declaration of War

**magitech, Um the Muse:**  The reason the "Dark creatures" are willing to side with Voldemort against the Ministry is twofold. First, Voldemort never struck me as a true supporter of blood purity; it's kind of hard to do that when  _you're_  in the group that gets discriminated against. He's a megalomaniacal psychopath, and the reason he filled his ranks with bigoted Purebloods is because they have the best access to the resources he needs for his war. If the Dark creatures side with him, he will fulfill his side of the bargain, especially if he foresees needing them in the future. Second and more immediately relevant, bigots as extreme as Umbridge are rare. For most of the Purebloods invested in the Cause, they would be perfectly content to ignore non-humans entirely. For the creatures, being left on their own to do what they want (provided they don't bring the Purebloods' attention down on themselves) is better than being monitored and restricted by the currently mixed Ministry; this is especially true for werewolves, vampires, harpies, and lamia (as well as Veela, incidentally), all of whom require humans – preferably  _'helpless Muggles'_ , who are currently another protected group that the Purebloods couldn't care less about – for either reproduction or feeding.

 **Isa Limitus:**  Well, the reason you don't see Jen's perspective on humanity to be cynical is  _probably_ because you're a cynic, too, so of course it sounds perfectly reasonable. :-) Don't worry, I'm pretty cynical as well, but there  _are_  people out there who insist that humanity's primordial viciousness and cruelty is, except for rare exceptions, something relegated to the distant past; these people tend to call themselves  _'idealists'_. Obviously, Lily is one of those crazies.

**I had** _**entirely** _ **too much fun writing this chapter, and all three scenes to boot. And rejoice! For this has the event you guys have** _**all** _ **been begging/pleading/threatening me for.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did Harry ever consider that Luna might have been hurt by his hasty jump out from under the mistletoe? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 27  
** **Declaration of War**

Was it wrong, Voldemort facetiously wondered to himself, that the faces of the eight Hit Wizards, ashen and drawn in their overriding terror, brought such a wide smile to his lips?

"W-W-Who are you?" the leader of the squad demanded, dusky hands shivering uncontrollably as he aimed his wand. Beside him, the other Hit Wizards, fighters purported to be trained for heavy combat, struggled to do likewise. "W-Who are you  _r-really_?!"

Voldemort smirked. To answer or not to answer; that was the  _real_  question. "Surely you have not forgotten me in such a short time." He hummed to himself, only for a moment. "I suppose that means I will simply have to…  _re-educate_  you."

" _Stupefy_!" The Senior Hit Wizard's incantation was echoed by the rest, and an octet of scarlet beams streaked towards his general vicinity; only four would have hit him, the rest going wide due to being fired from shaking grips. A snap of Voldemort's wrist had his wand appearing in his hand, and a swift, small swirl conjured a thick marble slab between him and his current foes.  _One, three, six, seven_ … The eighth spell smashed against his barrier, and a sudden downward flick of his wand tip caused the wall to shatter from the force of his overpowered Banishing Charm. Most of the law enforcers had the presence of mind to get out of the way of his defense-turned-attack; only the youngest member and sole witch on the team stopped to stare in horror at the onslaught. An instant later, the expression that screamed to the whole world of her inexperience was wiped away as a large chunk of stone tore her pretty blonde head off her shoulders and smaller shards, each  _merely_  the size of his hand, punched through the rest of her body before it could hit the ground.

One down. Seven left.

Ironically, the death of their partner had managed to galvanize the rest into action. Two of them slung Reductor Curses at him, one high and one low, while a third scrambled farther away and shot another Stunner; the strategy was undoubtedly meant to force him to shield against the curses and thereby leave himself open to the hex. Against a lesser wizard, it might have even worked.

He, however, took a swift step  _forward_  – putting him out of the course of the Stunning Spell – then spun around on his left leg. The Reductors sailed past him harmlessly while he retaliated with a jet of light of his own, not at the two wizards who had tried to distract him but at the one who thought to incapacitate him with such a mediocre attack. His spell hit the man in the thigh, and the Hit Wizard screamed as the grey Bone-Shattering Curse literally shredded his limb to the point it was ripped away from his body, bright red blood gushing out with the force of a firehose. Being dark magic, nothing could heal the wound; the Hit Wizard, despite his still-beating heart, was already dead.

Better yet, the rest of the squad knew it.

One of the wizards lost his nerve and tried to run as the Dark Lord absently blocked another pair of Stunners, and a swish of Voldemort's pale wand wand staggered him with a Trip Jinx. Though he  _very_  rarely used them, he had found that even schoolyard hexes could have a potential use in a fight under just the right circumstances. Voldemort tagged him with a second spell as he was falling, and the wizard grabbed futilely at the Bubble-Head Charm sitting snuggly on his face before spasming in an uncontrollable seizure. Most magicals only used the sixth-year spell if they wanted to swim underwater, but an old Grindelwald supporter Voldemort had met back when he was traveling the world as Tom Riddle had explained that the fresh air it supplied could be replaced with  _any_ gas, including a surprisingly effective Nazi weapon called sarin.

Five left.

While he was dealing with the deserter, the two Hit Wizards who had cast the Reductors had separated and were sprinting in opposite directions, trying to flank him and firing the first curse or hex they could think of, while another had taken refuge behind a stack of boxes and was flinging a rainbow of spells towards him. A fourth was rushing to the side of the legless wizard in a futile attempt to save the dying man. The last had pulled out a mirror and was screaming into it, and it was this that caught Voldemort's attention.

" _Accio Herculeum_ ," he snarled, snapping his wand towards the fifth wizard the instant before throwing his torso backwards and bending his knees, the other Hit Wizards' spells flying harmlessly over him. A scream was his signal to whip himself forward again, a Blasting Curse sailing from his wand and through the gap between the crates the sniper was hiding behind. An explosion of blood and viscera splattered the wall beyond with gore, and the Hit Wizard who had been communicating with the home office fell as the Giant's Summoning Charm, finished with its grisly work, tore his robes apart and pulled the front half of his rib cage and his abdominal muscles away, entrails sliding along the ground like thick pink snakes.

With a yell of anguish, the dark-skinned Senior Hit Wizard hurled a comet of golden flame, the air quivering as the recognizable dark spell soared towards him. Rather than dodge or block, however, Voldemort merely smiled and flicked his wand when the spell arrived, the raw magic that poured out catching the curse on the tip and ricocheting it away. This was no shield or cheap gimmick, merely overwhelming strength to blunt the 'edges' of the spell along with the exceptional reflexes he had been born with and then had honed through practice and rituals to the same keenness as Excalibur's blade. The Scorching Curse smashed into an unprotected back, and the healer wailed as flesh melted off bone and dripped onto the corpse below.

Two.

" _Levicorpus_." The Ankle Noose Hex yanked the wizard standing next to his superior into the sky, and the leader of the team made the mistake of cutting his eyes towards his squad mate; in doing so, he missed seeing the chips of stone from Voldemort's original barrier and the detonated building's walls leap into the air and meld into a dozen lances that flew forward to skewer him, plucking him off the ground and pinning him to an undamaged façade like a bug in a display case.

The greatest Dark Lord in British history smiled, his expression one of pure joy. When he led the raid against Azkaban back in September, he had realized how much he missed getting into the thick of battle, missed watching his enemies fall before him, missed seeing wide eyes as they realized their attempts to thwart him had been doomed from the start. This encounter only confirmed his feeling of nostalgia. Perhaps the werewolves had a point, loath though he was to admit it.

Fishing a small watch from his pocket, he checked the time again, just as he had done before destroying the building and setting up this confrontation.  _Eight Hit Wizards taken out in less than twenty seconds_ , he noted.  _Not bad for someone who's turning seventy next year_. "Now, what should I do with  _you_?" he asked the bald man hanging upside down in front of him.

 _Crack. Crack. Crack, crack, crack-crack-crack-crackcrackcrackcrackcrack_.

He turned his head and grinned to himself as more and more black and red cloaks swarmed the middle of the Alley. The only way the DMLE could so quickly Apparate here rather than to the designated exit points was if they had deactivated the wards, something he had always thought was possible but had had no solid information about. He would have to thank them for confirming his suspicions. Directing his eyes to the suspended wizard again, he shook his head in a mockery of regret. "And here I was, thinking perhaps I could spare you to serve as my messenger to the Ministry. Too bad."

A bolt of green death hit the man before he could do more than widen his eyes in terror.

"Dear Merlin. This isn't possible," one witch muttered in the crowd, her soft words drifting through the silence unimpeded, and though no one responded, it was obvious they all felt the same way. The blood and body parts  _did_  paint a macabre scene, after all; that he had used their comrades as his brush only caused it to hit closer to home. The faces of the Aurors mingled among the assembled Hit Wizards and Witches looked just as terrified, not without good reason. Despite none of their own lying on the ground, they had to realize what a precarious position they were in now. The five scarlet-robed inspectors present here constituted close to a  _fifth_  of their total force, and honestly Voldemort was surprised the steel-haired, monocle-wearing witch standing at the forefront of the troop had managed to assemble  _that_  many in such a short timeframe.

"So they were right, after all," Amelia Bones said, almost to herself. "You  _are_  back. I had hoped they were mistaken or even lying."

"Indeed, Amelia," he answered with a nod of his head and a sharp, mocking smile. The witch bristled at being spoken to with such familiarity. "The audience hated our previous production so much that the playwright was forced to try again."

"A  _play_? Let me guess; this is supposed to be Act I, Scene 1?" she spat, fury etched into each syllable.

"Oh, my dear, you're not even close. Scene 1  _already_? Let's not get ahead of ourselves. This is merely the  _prelude_. One must always set the stage and introduce the main characters before the story truly gets underway."

"We  _will_  stop you,  _Voldemort_ ," the witch snarled, apparently tiring of the jibes.

A pity, that.

The mass of Hit Wizards and Aurors squirmed at their superior's declaration, and he could not hold in his amusement any longer. He threw back his head and  _laughed_. "Stop me?  _You_? You tried to do that for  _ten years_  without success, only surrendering more and more ground to me. Yet you somehow expect this time to be any different? Amelia,  _surely_  you jest."

"But in the end, you were defeated last time by a mere  _toddler_." She bared her teeth in a sneer. " _Pathetic_."

"You honestly believe that tripe?" He shook his head, hiding his anger at that reminder underneath a mask of vague humor. "My ultimate victory was  _delayed_ , yes, but not because of the acts of a worthless child. No, I simply did not realize the purpose of Charlus Potter's final spell and fell to the assumption that someone who prided himself on being  _'Light'_  would never taint himself by calling down such an insidious curse." The smirk he gave the head of the DMLE only furthered her distraction. "Let me assure you, I will not be making  _that_  mistake again."

Bones grimaced at that, and he could almost see the cogs of her mind tearing apart the accepted story and trying to piece it back together based on what he had said. Admittedly, he  _still_  did not know what exactly had happened that fateful Halloween – the last thing he remembered of that night was speaking the incantation for the Killing Curse over Danny Potter's crib, and then coming back to consciousness as a wraith in the French countryside three days later – and it was  _possible_ , however unlikely, that the boy had some kind of power that had protected him, but the  _truth_  did not matter in the slightest.

No, what mattered was what was  _believed_. He had seen, and even now could still hear, the people huddled in fear in the shops nearby; at least some would be listening to his words. Potter was still held up as a savior, even after his less than impressive public displays the previous year, and it was to him that the cringing wizards and witches of the country would turn their eyes, begging and pleading and praying for deliverance.

But blind faith was ever so fragile.

He had actually put a lot of thought into this, what he would say should he ever have a convenient platform. Because Potter, regardless of whatever incredible potential he might or might not have had as an toddler, was now nothing more than an average teenager, it would not take much to shatter the public's devotion. All he had to do was uncover the flaws and create the first few fractures; once that was done, the average man's expectations and eventual disbelief would widen those cracks until the boy – or at least his reputation – inevitably shattered. The myth of the Boy-Who-Lived would be cast away and forgotten, and Dumbledore, who according to Lucius had depended on his connection to the Potters to shore up his own fading political power, would almost certainly fall alongside it.

The only downside was that he had to acknowledge his defeat, but there was little he could do to refute that. Besides, at least in  _his_  tale the one who had ultimately laid him low was already dead, and unlike him, the elderly Potter had no chance of being resurrected.

 _Now that I think about it, though, wasn't there a second child there?_ , he wondered.  _I distinctly remember Wormtail telling me that the Potters had both a boy and a girl, even if I never saw the second._

 _Oh, well. Considering no one has ever heard of her, I suppose she must have died that night, anyway_.

Bones was apparently done pondering his words, and she raised her wand at him, the rest of her force hesitated before mimicking her motions. Voldemort considered eliminating another portion of her department here and now before rejecting that idea. He had already accomplished his goals for this outing: announcing his return to the world, which should be enough to bring the Packs into the fold, and damaging Potter and Dumbledore's entwined reputations. There was no reason to stay, and doing so ran the  _slight_  risk of being overwhelmed and being forced to flee.

Opportunities needed to be taken advantage of if he wished to win, but getting greedy could only cause another downfall.

"I suppose I will not get any shopping done today," he told the witch, fake regret leaking from his taunt. He slipped his hand into his pocket to grab the portkey he had created before coming here. With the wards down, he could use his first exit strategy rather than his plan B, which had consisted of disillusioning himself and sneaking to the exit point as he had done to get into position for his big reveal. "That  _is_  unfortunate. Until next time, dearest Amelia."

He was gone before the witch's curse had a chance to land.

* * *

Hermione peered into the next room and sighed when she found the object of her search. After the hastily called Order meeting that afternoon, where it had been revealed that You-Know-Who had made his first public appearance following his reincarnation not an hour before, everyone was a little on edge. She herself had asked Mr. Potter to Apparate her home for a brief visit so she could see with her own two eyes that her parents were all right, and Mrs. Weasley had bundled all her brood in one room as if she could defend them all by her lonesome.

In that light, it was understandable that Danny had become distraught when his mother, who had been away from the Longbottoms' manor while You-Know-Who was attacking, had returned and immediately secreted herself elsewhere in the absurdly large house.

 _If we could use our wands, we could have found her before now instead of spending the past couple of hours looking for her throughout this huge house_ , Hermione huffed. She slipped inside the room, but before she could say a word, her eyes were distracted by two things. The first was the trio of empty wine bottles next to the couch Mrs. Potter was sitting on, and the second was the stack of large books on the table in front of her.

Taking another step, she asked, "Are those old photo albums?"

"Oh!" The redhead jumped up from her place on the couch, a hand coming up to cover her heart. "Hermione, don't  _do_  that. You just scared ten years off my life."

"Sorry, Mrs. Potter."

"I told you, it's Lily. You're old enough to call me by my name." Shaking her head and retaking her seat, Mrs. Potter asked, "Why brings you all the way up here?"

"Danny was worried about you. You just disappeared earlier, and with You-Know-Who's attack and us not being able to find you…"

"Yes, terrible thing, that." The older witch shook her head. "I wasn't anywhere near London today, though."

Pursing her lips, Hermione sidled a little closer. "So… Where  _were_  you, then?"

The older witch stared through her with eyes far too sharp for someone who had drained three bottles of wine on her own, but eventually she looked back down at the album in her lap. "Little Whinging. I was visiting my sister. Well,  _trying_  to visit my sister."

"Oh. Was she unhappy to see you?"

"She certainly would have been; our last few interactions were  _far_  from pleasant." She flipped through the book and stopped on a group of yellowed photographs. "So different from when we were children, but I guess that's only to be expected. All children grow up, and in our case, we both grew up to be foolish, arrogant bitches."

"Mrs. Potter!"

Emerald eyes turned to glare at her scandalized tone. "I fail to see how I refer to myself is a problem."

"It's… just…" The brunette shook her head and chose to ignore it. It was strange how a Lady like Danny's mother – even if she refused to be called by that title – could be so  _uncouth_ , though the alcohol likely had a little something to do with it. "If you and your sister don't get along, why were you going to see her?"

"I had some…  _questions_ , you could say. Questions only she could answer."

That told her absolutely nothing, and finally crossing the last few feet of distance, she peered down at the page in the album. The picture was quite old, and it showed a blond man and a dark brunette woman looking down at a pair of girls, one a cute little redheaded toddler who could only be a young Mrs. Potter and the other a long-faced blonde who shared little of her younger sister's adorableness. "Is that…?"

"That's Petunia, yes. She was a year and a half older than me; that's not a long time, I know, but back then it might as well have been an unbridgeable gap." Mrs. Potter frowned. "Or it could have been my magic, I suppose. Petunia always was jealous that I had it and she didn't, and jealousy is an ugly, ugly thing."

 _I can see another reason she was so jealous_ , Hermione thought as the older witch flipped through a few more pages. As a child, it was already clear that Mrs. Potter was going to be a gorgeous woman, but Petunia? Not so much.

The wine the redhead had drunk must have been very special, indeed, for she seemed to read Hermione's mind. "I never said anything to anyone growing up, but I always wondered why Petunia and I looked so different, and once I started Hogwarts, why I had magic and she didn't. With Muggleborns, it's normal that if one sibling has it, the other will as well. When I was thirteen and Petunia fourteen, Dad sat us down in the kitchen and explained that we were actually  _half_ -sisters; Petunia's mother died giving birth to her, and a year later he married Mum when he found out she was pregnant." Giving Hermione a conspiratorial glance, she explained, "Even when we were old enough to realize what was going on, he wasn't exactly a fan of keeping it in his pants, as it were. Mum and Dad were always fighting about him cheating on her, and if it weren't that we grew up Catholic, they probably would have gotten a divorce."

 _ **Thank**_ _you. That is more information about your family than I_ _ **ever**_ _wanted to know_.

"That was part of the problem I had with James, now that I think about it, at least when we got older. He developed a reputation as a skirt-chaser, him and Sirius both, and I wanted nothing to do with someone like my father."

"If you didn't like him, why did you start dating him?" Hermione asked, curious despite herself.

"He toned down his arrogance and stopped being such a bully, mostly. As for his reputation, well…" She shot the younger witch a knowing smirk. "No matter the skill, one only gets better with  _experience_."

Hermione slapped her hands over her ears and turned away. This was  _not_  something she wanted to hear!

"Hey,  _you_  bothered  _me_. You don't get to complain about what you hear as a result," Mrs. Potter reminded her, far too much amusement in her tone. Flipping though the album again, she continued in a softer, sadder voice, "Petunia and I drifted apart as we got older, our relationship destroyed because of jealousy. Hers at my magic and my looks, and mine at how much closer she was with our parents. That's why James and I gave Jenny to her; we thought she was a Squib, and I didn't want Danny and Jenny to grow to hate each other the way Petunia and I did."

Opening her eyes, she saw that the photographs displayed now were much more recent and focused on the Potters. All  _four_  of them, which put to rest a few doubts in the back of her head that she had done her best to ignore. She believed Danny and what he had said his parents told him, even if Black's story, that careful lie she had spread to the world, sounded disturbingly plausible even to those who  _knew_  the truth.

"Too bad she couldn't have  _stayed_  there instead of making trouble for the rest of us," she muttered.

Mrs. Potter whirled around, fury blazing in her eyes. "Don't you  _ever_  talk about things you don't know anything about like that!  _Never_!" Hermione took a hasty step back, and after another few seconds' glare, the woman slowly turned back to the album. One finger rose to stroke baby Black's face. " _No_  child deserves what happened to her there. None at all."

"Surely it couldn't have been  _that_  bad," she replied in a whisper.

"It was. Petunia's jealousy, like a wound in her heart, became infected and festered into a consuming hatred of all things magical. That included Jenny. She was  _proud_  of what she did, how she abused and  _tortured_  a little girl for the simple crime of being my daughter." She shook her head. "I didn't want my children to grow up jealous of each other like we did, so instead I favored my son and condemned my daughter to a childhood that doesn't have the right to be called as such. All because I was a fool and listened to Dumbledore's suggestion."

Hermione gasped. "Mrs. Potter, listen to what you're saying! He's  _Professor Dumbledore_ ; if he felt giving her up was for the best, then surely he had good reason—"

"How old are you?"

"W-What?" the brunette asked, befuddled at the interruption.

Lily looked sternly at her. "How. Old. Are. You?"

"Sixteen. I'll turn seventeen next September."

"Almost seventeen. Almost an adult, with all the rights and responsibilities that entails." Hermione stood straighter at that declaration, only to be brought low again as the redhead continued, "And yet you're still nothing more than a stupid little girl."

"I beg your pardon!"

"You can beg all you like; you still won't get it." The woman shook her head, undaunted by Hermione's scowl of righteous indignation. "As a child, your mistakes can be excused, but you – Danny, Neville, and Ron, too – will soon no longer be children. You'll be responsible for your own actions and your own mistakes. You will not be able to ignore the consequences of what you've done just because someone else told you to do it." Mrs. Potter sighed. "Perhaps stupid was the wrong word, but  _naïve_? Most definitely."

The brunette blinked, utterly confused at what the other witch was talking about. "What does that have to do with—?"

"Dumbledore told us that Jenny was a Squib, that we should give her up. But Jenny was not  _Dumbledore's_ child; she was  _ours_. We told ourselves that what we were doing was right. I mean, how could listening to  _Albus Dumbledore_  be the wrong decision? Except no one, not even he, is infallible. I knew better, knew Petunia better, but I went along with his plan. And all that has done is cause the four of us grief and pain, Jenny by far the most. It's why we put these photo albums in our Gringotts vault: to keep our decision out of sight, to try to dull the pain by pretending it never happened. Fat lot of good  _that_  did us in the end."

Shifting her eyes to the floor, the walls, anywhere but Mrs. Potter, Hermione tried hard to ignore what she was hearing. Her parents had always taught her that people in positions of authority got there because they had the best interests of the people in mind, and her own experience before Hogwarts was that authority figures were the only ones who listened or cared. The staff at the castle were sometimes… no,  _oftentimes_ less effective than her primary school teachers or administration, but with the exception of Professor Snape and Umbridge, surely they at least  _tried_ , right?

"Is this what you found out from your sister?" she asked, desperate to change the subject to something less personally distressing.

"No, I found all this out last year. Today I was going to try to get more information, but…" Mrs. Potter sighed. "It turns out she's dead."

"Oh, Merlin. I'm so sorry."

"What makes it worse is that it wasn't a recent occurrence; she and her husband and her son have been dead for months now. Their house burned down with them still in it, and from what the neighbors told me, the fire was  _anything_  but natural," the woman finished in an ominous tone.

Hermione blanched. "Was it the Death Eaters?"

"I don't know. Maybe." The redhead shrugged. "I didn't think anyone but I knew where she lived, but someone could have found out, I suppose."

 _No one but you and_ _ **Black**_. Hermione did not speak her suspicion aloud; with the way the drunken witch was acting, she would definitely not appreciate hearing about the possibility that her  _'precious little girl'_  might be a murderer, no matter how well it fit the facts. Seeing how Mrs. Potter had dismissed her in favor of again flipping through the old photographs, she carefully and quietly walked away.

Danny needed to hear about this.

* * *

Stepping out of the emerald flames, Jen and Sirius brushed the soot off their coats while examining the room the Floo had disgorged them in. It was completely round, much like the Ravenclaw common room; a kitchen complete with table and chairs sat in one side of the space, and the other half was dominated by a printing press still churning out pages and a large chalkboard covered in scribbled notes and scraps of parchment. Strewn about the floor were modeled creatures and books arranged in teetering towers, and the strings of garland and clumps of mistletoe hanging on the walls only compounded the clutter.

"I like it," Sirius declared, bouncing up and down on his feet like an over-eager puppy. "Much better than Grimmauld Place was when I was growing up. Very homely."

Shaking her head, Jen replied, "Well,  _I_  like Grimmauld just fine. Their place is cozy, though. But where  _are_  our hosts?"

"Outside, maybe?"

That was as good a place to start looking as any, and the two Blacks carefully made their way across the floor to the door. There was a spell set upon the threshold, and its purpose was made clear when they stepped through and the sound of the gathering hit them full-force. A crowd was gathered around a trio of large cauldrons a short distance away from the house, steam wafting off the pots and laughter pouring forth from many mouths. Sirius, sensing his element, bounded off at top speed to join the party, and Jen just shook her head before following at a more sedate pace.

Before she could cross half the distance, she was waylaid by the blonde cannonball who had obviously been waiting all night for the sight of her white dragonhide coat. "Jen!" Luna cried out, all but throwing herself into the older witch's arms. "You came!"

"I said I would, didn't I?" she retorted gently. Smiling at the brunet boy who had followed, she remarked, "I see your parents decided to let you attend after all, Kenneth."

"Yeah, once I said a friend had invited me and that it was a long-standing tradition around here, they didn't really mind. The late hour helped, too, but then they said I had to be back by midnight," he added with a frown.

Luna just smiled as she continued dragging Jen towards one end of the crowd. "Oh, that shouldn't be a problem. That's four hours from now, after all, and we rarely finish past ten o'clock. Daddy! I have some people I want you to meet!"

The blonde's father was easy for Jen to find; just like his daughter, his core was not the stable orb of static that everyone else's was, but instead it bounced and twirled, long arms of energy whipping through the air in an unceasing, ungainly dance. Turning away from the young woman bouncing a little girl in her arms whom he had been chatting with when he heard Luna's shout, he smiled broadly at them. "You must be the friends Luna told me would be coming."

"Yes, sir," Kenneth answered. "Kenneth Towler."

"Jen Black. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Lovegood."

"Ah," the wizard said, his grin disappearing and one hand coming up to fuss with the ends of his long white hair. "Yes, I've heard quite a bit about  _you_ , Miss Black."

"Daddy, please don't do this. Not tonight of all nights," begged Luna as she glanced around at the rest of the party.

He tried to put on a smile, though it looked more like a grimace to Jen. "Don't worry about a thing, pumpkin. Your friend and I just need to have a little chat. I'm sure we'll both come back in one piece." Ignoring his daughter's scowl, he gestured for the Black heiress to follow him.

"This should be far enough," he told her when they reached the nearby tree line. Jen stretched out her fingers, preparing to defend herself, but the wizard did not reach for his wand. Instead, he commented, "I knew your mother when we were both students at Hogwarts, did you know that? I was a year behind her, and when I was only a little younger than Luna is now, I was in desperate need of a friend. The rest of my class thought I was a little… well,  _mad_ , really, so I had spent the years before quite alone."

Considering what she knew of the Lovegoods' familial gift, the unusual manifestation of their remarkable empathic sense, Jen had no trouble believing this.

"Bellatrix held out her hand to me one day and promised that she would be the friend I needed. I accepted her offer, unaware of her true nature, and for a time I was happy. I was included in her 'court', much like the circle of friends Luna tells me you have collected, and I even found myself developing a bit of a fancy for her—"

"Again like Luna," she interrupted.

"So you  _are_  aware of her feelings," Mr. Lovegood mused. "I had wondered. Yes, again like Luna. Unfortunately, your mother was… not a good person.  _Very much_  not a good person, if I may be so bold. For over a year, she used my indebtedness and gratitude as leverage to make me do whatever she wanted, oftentimes at my personal expense. When I finally confronted her about her manipulations, she threw me away and spread vicious rumors throughout the castle about how  _dangerous_  I was." He scowled. "Since she was Bellatrix Black and I was just lonely, unwelcome Xeno Lovegood, it should be no mystery to you how  _that_  development was taken."

She nodded. It was strange, but of all the possible confrontations she could have with the parents of one of her friends, this was actually remarkably civil for the circumstances. Unfortunately, she could already tell this was a preface to demands she would be much less willing to consider. "I think I understand what you're saying. You see my friendship with Luna as a mirror to your experience with my mother, and because of that you dislike me and wish for me to stay far away from her. Is that correct?"

"Blood will out, more often than not," he agreed. "And I do not  _dislike_  you, per se; I don't know you, so I can neither like nor dislike you. However, I most certainly do not  _trust_  you, especially not around my daughter." He sighed. "The problem, of course, is that it doesn't really matter what I tell you to do or not to do, does it? You two are up in Scotland for ten months out of the year, so you'll do whatever you like regardless of my wishes."

"I wouldn't put it quite so bluntly, but you're not far off," was her rather amused reply.

With a nod, he continued, "I didn't think so. So no, I'm not going to waste my breath telling you to stay away, and I don't want to damage my relationship with my daughter by  _'interfering'_  in her life. I may be in my forties, but I  _do_  still remember how teenage girls act.

"And perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps I'm just an old man stuck in the past who's projecting his own grudge onto a young woman who has done nothing to deserve such suspicions. Luna is generally a good judge of character, and during our…  _impassioned discussions_ concerning her friendship with you," he said with a slight grimace, "she told me that you have not treated her anything like how your mother treated me. I would honestly  _love_  to be wrong about all this, and nothing would please me more than apologizing to you in a few years for having made these accusations. Until that time, however…"

Xeno shook his head. "Until that time, I will be keeping my eye on you."

"That is… acceptable, I suppose." The wizard looked surprised at her admission, and she explained, "Listening to your story, I will concede that you have an justifiable concern, especially with the reprehensible way my mother treated you. Between that and you saying that you will not try to strain our friendship, I see no problem with you  _'keeping your eye on me'_." She grinned slyly and began walking back to the party.

"No, I will simply look forward to the day you give me that apology."

Perhaps half an hour later – and after two of the three cauldrons of mulled cider had been consumed, which made the group as a whole  _decidedly_  warmer and more relaxed – they began sneaking towards the Weasley family's orchard, though the laughter as they cracked jokes made their approach rather less than  _'stealthy'_. There was a long wooden fence surrounding the property, but the deterrent that obstacle offered was drastically reduced when the two leaders of the column, Cedric's father Amos and Annette McNeese – the same woman Xeno had been speaking to earlier – could simply open the nearby gate to allow the procession to advance.

"This  _really_  isn't very effective at keeping people out, is it?" Jen remarked quietly as they passed through.

"Well, normally it doesn't  _have_  to be," answered Cedric from his place next to her. Practically as soon as Amos saw her return from her discussion with the Lovegood patriarch, he started comparing her accomplishments in the Triwizard Tournament to his son's. The Head Boy had appeared only seconds later and ushered her away from the boasting man, apologizing profusely all the while. Amos's words had not been meant as an insult, he had told her; the elder Diggory was simply proud of Cedric's accomplishments and wanted the whole world to hear of them, even if that meant he had to repeat himself to the point of absurdity. "The gate's more of a friendly request for privacy than anything else. If we need to get to the Weasleys at any time, we just walk on through."

"This should be far enough," Amos said as he turned to Ryan Kingsford, head of the Kingsford clan and eldest of the four generations of that family. "Would you care to do the honors?"

The withered old wizard sighed. "I suppose I might as well. Everyone, stand in a square and face the eastern sky."

The magical families of Ottery St. Catchpole fell into formation with the ease of long practice – Jen, Sirius, and Kenneth nestled in the center – and the members of each row grabbed their neighbors' hands. Kingsford raised a large goblet filled with cider from the last cauldron to the starry sky and sang a jaunty carol, the others echoing his words.

Jen's attention was not on the lyrics, however. Something very  _strange_  was going on.

By the end of the first line, the steady pulsations of the cores of the town's gathered inhabitants, which were normally synchronized with their bodies' hearts, began to harmonize and beat in eerie unison. By the  _fourth_ line, they were releasing gentle waves of magic indiscriminately into the air.

By the end of the ditty, when everyone turned to the north, threads of mystic power had emerged and were drifting out of her sonar's range in the direction of the trees.

It was at the third repetition, this time facing south, that  _'strange'_  turned into  _'disturbing'_. As if waiting for a hidden signal, Luna's core began to burn, and her floating threads became tongues of fire. Jen nearly jerked her hand out of the blonde's grasp in an attempt to escape the  _light magic_  that was suddenly flowing through her friend. No one else seemed to notice the change, and when they made their last recitation, this time to the west, Great-Grandmother Kingsford's magic did the same thing.

Feeling the hate and rage beginning to bubble on its own in the back of her mind as they left the Weasleys' orchard, Jen carefully shook out the aches Luna's scorching grip had left behind. She had no idea what was going on, but she did  _not_  like it. Not one little bit.

At each property, they performed the same rite, singing the simple tune to the four cardinal directions, and each time more and more of the carolers had their magic turn light. Ignoring the oddity that was Luna's participation, there seemed to be a general trend that the older one was –  _Or perhaps the more experience one has with the tradition_ , Jen thought as she felt Annette's magic come alight ahead of her husband Danny's – the quicker and smoother the transformation.

By the time the last orchard, the Lovegoods', had been wassailed, only six members of the group did not have light magic pouring forth into the world. Kenneth and the three youngest members of the McNeese family were completely unaffected, probably due to their unfamiliarity with what they were meant to be doing; Jen and – to a lesser extent, but still surprisingly – Sirius's magic, on the other hand, became colder and darker, almost as if they were subconsciously trying to defend themselves from the heat building up around them.

Only once the final song was sung and the gathering began to break apart did the black witch have an idea about what she had just experienced.  _I think… I think that was_ _ **coven magic**_.

Coven magic as an art was supposed to be  _extinct_ , primarily because no one in the modern age knew how it worked. In the ancient days, before the Romans created the wands that were now used throughout the world, magic was treated much more as a wild and primal force, something that could not be  _controlled_ , merely directed. Various cultures across the world used runes or rituals or sympathetic magic to work their wills onto reality, but some, such as the Greeks, had found that a group of wizards and witches working together could somehow induce miraculous events to occur. Generally, these cultures believed that what they were doing was petitioning some higher power to grant their request – which, considering her  _own_  experiences, was not  _necessarily_  an impossibility – but later scholars had suspected that it was really just a primitive form of the more scientific spell-casting developed by the Egyptians and subsequently refined by the Romans.

Unfortunately, no one, at least not to her knowledge, had ever been able to recreate it to test that theory.

 _Was it because they were trying too hard?_ , Jen wondered, thinking over her observations again. Not one of the witches or wizards had been  _trying_  to perform magic, after all, though their united intent was definitely enough to manipulate the mystic energy.  _Then again, perhaps coven magic only works with light or dark magic tied to one of the Powers. After all, the repetitions, the goal of strengthening the trees; what we saw tonight was practically an ad hoc ritual dedicated to Holda._

_Which is also why, despite how academically interesting this was, I'm_ _**never** _ _taking part in it again._

"We really did have a great time," Sirius told Xeno as the pair of men led the girls and Kenneth back into the Rook. "Thank you so much for inviting us."

The elder Lovegood smiled, though a shadow seemed to pass over his face before he replied. "Oh, it was no problem at all. We've never had any problems letting others join in, and it's nice to actually meet some of the friends Luna has been telling me about."

Luna tugged on her arm then, pulling her away from the conversing adults and towards the stairs. "I left your present upstairs," the blonde whispered in explanation, and curiosity abounding, Jen followed without protest, their exit unseen by any of the males.

Unlike the ground floor, the next story of the house, obviously the Lovegoods' living room, was much better organized if more sparsely decorated. There was a single sofa and a couple of squishy armchairs located in the middle of the room, all facing a second fireplace, a large, curved horn from some animal framed overhead, and a few landscape paintings and old photographs could be seen hanging on the walls. A short, squat tree festooned with tinsel and tinted glass ornaments took the place of pride on the opposite side of the round room from the stairwell. Rushing over to the small puddle of gifts scattered underneath the boughs, Luna grabbed a misshapen package, but her apprehension was readily apparent as she returned. "It's, um, not much, I know, but…"

Jen cut the younger girl off with a shake of her head and pulled the present out of the slack grip. Quickly tearing away the glimmering silver paper, she smiled softly as the black and blue scarf hidden inside poured out. "It's quite nice," she began, and then her grin grew wider and slyer as she noticed that the width of the cloth changed throughout the length, the irregular shifts indicating that they were an amateur's mistakes rather than an intentional element of the design. Hiding her suspicions, she asked, "Wherever did you find it?"

"I, well…" Luna ducked her head, cheeks red and hot. "I made it. I'm good at lots of different arts and crafts, but knitting… isn't really one of them."

"I wouldn't say that. I actually like it a lot," she disagreed, wrapping it around her neck and brushing her fingers over the twin tails that hung down her front. Fishing around in one of the pockets of her coat, she pulled out a small cube wrapped in dark green and topped with a gold bow. "Yours is… not quite as functional, though I think you'll enjoy it nonetheless."

Luna gave her a curious look and hastily opened the gift, and then she blinked in confusion as she looked inside the box. "Thank you, but… What is it?"

In lieu of answering, Jen levitated the present out of its container and into the blonde's waiting hand. It  _looked_  simple enough, just a dark grey glass ball resting on top of a triangular brass base. What could not immediately be seen were the runes carved into the bottom; this was one of the objects she had 'purchased' in the junk shop during her abortive date with McLaggen, and after examining the symbols – thankfully in Futhark rather than the Sumerian she would have otherwise expected to be found on an enchanted object – she had been shocked that someone would ever throw such a prize away. It had only taken her twenty or thirty minutes to replace the metal that had been worn off the base and touch up the roughened edges of the runes that had rendered the object nonfunctional.

A tap of her finger on the glass sphere, and it shone with a brilliant white light that quickly coalesced into a film around the walls and furniture. Luna watched in astonishment as her living room was replaced with a large room filled with shelves, all stuffed with thick tomes. "What is this place?"

"Our library."

"You're giving me access to your  _family's library_?!" the blonde squeaked, turning enormous eyes to the elder witch.

Jen quirked one eyebrow, and then she laughed as she realized the mistake her friend had made. "No, no, nothing like that," she answered as she swept one hand through a nearby bookshelf, the wood and leather-bound pages shimmering as they were revealed to be nothing more than a magical hologram. "It's just an image I made while testing it out to make sure it worked. You can't actually  _read_  anything in here."

Luna looked both relieved and disappointed at that revelation.

"The thing is, I'm  _still_  not entirely sure what all this can do," Jen continued, touching the orb again and collapsing the illusion. "Since I don't have a name for it or whoever made it, I can't just look up its capabilities. Was it meant to be an attempt to reverse engineer a pensieve, allowing you to project memories? Can it record actual events around it, not just a static environment, and replay them at a later date? How much information can be stored on it?" She shrugged. "That's why I said it's not as functional as your gift; I can't promise that it's anything more than a mildly entertaining paperweight."

"It sounds like something I need to research, then," Luna replied with a broad smile. Jen rolled her eyes; only a true and devout Ravenclaw would consider a present that required research to properly use to be a good thing, which was part of the reason she gave it to Luna in the first place. As someone who was much more a snake than a bird, she personally preferred her gifts to be more immediately useful.

The blonde glanced up and swallowed faintly, the motion so small that Jen would not have noticed it were it not for her sonar. "Oh," the younger girl said softly, "mistletoe."

Indeed, there  _was_  a clump of leaves and berries immediately above them, and Jen nodded her head thoughtfully. "Yes, I noticed that it seems to be all but growing wild in your house. Why, it's almost as if someone  _purposely_  put up enough so that no matter where she was, she could secure a kiss from someone." Immediately cutting her gaze away, Luna's face again lit up with a pretty blush. Jen reached out with one hand and tilted the girl's head back up, causing Luna to stare at her with wide eyes.

Such a cute attempt at manipulation deserved to be rewarded.

The first kiss was nothing, just a soft brush of her lips against Luna's, then she dove in again for a more passionate second. On the third, she wrapped one arm securely around the blonde's waist while the fingers under Luna's chin moved over a smooth cheek to tangle in silky hair. On the fourth, Luna's arms encircled her neck, and by the fifth, their grappling was pushing their bodies tightly together while the blonde tried valiantly to defend her mouth against the tongue intent on invading it.

A gentle clearing of the throat preceded the question, "Am I…  _interrupting_  something?"

"You know good and well you are," Jen growled, turning her purple glare at Kenneth. Her fingers twitched, and Luna squeaked quietly as the motion squeezed the buttock that had found its way into her grasp. "A little  _privacy_ , if you don't mind?"

The Gryffindor looked uncomfortably back at the stairwell he had just climbed. " _I_  don't mind at all, but your… What  _is_  your relation to your Head of House, anyway?"

"He's my cousin and my godfather."

"Ah. Well, he noticed that you ran off and asked me to let you know that it's time for you to head out." Kenneth shrugged at her persistent frown. "Hey, don't get mad at me. I'm just the messenger."

Jen sighed and relaxed her possessive hold on Luna. She greatly disliked being treated like she was five rather than fifteen, but much as she would prefer to continue their previous fun, perhaps it was better they not. Between her own hypersexuality and Luna still potentially being under the influence of magic affiliated with regrowth and new life, left on their own she expected they would have escalated to a point the lithe blonde would be far less comfortable with in the light of a new day.

"Very well." Kenneth nodded and disappeared before he could be caught up any further in the awkward situation, and she sighed again and bent her head to nuzzle the side of Luna's neck. "But it doesn't mean I have to  _like_  it."

"I don't like it either," grumbled the younger witch, her finger threading through Jen's hair. Pulling away, the girl nibbled her bottom lip for a moment. "Jen? Next Hogsmeade visit, would you like to… maybe… I mean, it's okay if you  _don't_ —"

She laughed and gave Luna another quick peck. "It's a date."

* * *

_**This** _ **is why Voldemort is considered the worst Dark Lord to attack Britain in centuries even more than a decade after his first defeat. Not because he had an army. Not because his revolution killed hundreds. Because he turned murder and terror into an** _**art form** _ **, and in his chosen medium his mastery is uncontested.**

**Hermione was never meant to be a major player in this story, so I blame all the rest of you for her scene. You guys gave my muse** _**ideas** _ **, and unlike you,** _**I'm** _ **the one who has to bust my butt dealing with all the work those cause. Thankfully, I have drunk Lily to make up for it.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	28. Very Unmerry Christmas

**Waffliesinyoface:**  Well, there  _are_  some aftereffects to coven magic – namely why the McNeeses and the Kingsfords have so  _many_  kids – but no, the majority of the Devon magicals, like the rest of the country, are neutral magic-wise. Philosophically, they lean a bit to the Light side, but their acceptance of some aspects of the Old Ways (unlike the Weasleys) and general disinterest and powerlessness in politics makes that borderline irrelevant.

 **TinaMaki:**  Keep in mind that dark magic and black magic, while related, are still distinct entities; specifically, yes someone can be dark without being black. Also, while someone's magic darkening is normally a result of his or her own actions and choice of spells, in  _certain_  families, such as the House of Black, the entire bloodline is inherently dark or light. Were Sirius born to a normal family, he would likely be neutral or possibly light, but getting away from his heritage would be an uphill and somewhat futile battle.

**I like to think it takes a lot to disturb me, but this chapter? This chapter managed it. On a** _**completely** _ **unrelated note, there most definitely will** _**not** _ **be another Candyland scene in this book.**

**Also, next chapter will come out in three weeks rather than two. I have six 12-hour shifts next week, so that means no** _**Vegas** _ **, which in turn means my update schedule gets all out of whack.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did Dumbledore deny that Death created the Hallows while he and Harry were standing on the  _DOORMAT_  of the  _AFTERLIFE_? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 28  
** **Very Unmerry Christmas**

_This is most definitely_ _ **not**_ _where I wanted to spend the rest of my Christmas Eve_ , Jen thought with no little degree of irritation as she looked at the swirling white mist surrounding her. That her primary emotion at finding herself again in Death's realm was  _anger_  rather than terror was surprising even to her, but after a moment, she realized that such a change was not  _totally_  unreasonable.  _The last time I was here, he was… Gracious? Hospitable? At the very least, he was not flying into a rage the way he did with Elsie. That along with how he applauded me during my ritual to summon Voldemort's soul jars – because who else could it have been standing there? – means I should have little to fear._

_Hopefully._

"Indeed, you do not."

The echoing, nasal voice broke through the silence, and curtain of fog parted to reveal a shadow that could only be the Baron. Before he came into clear view, Jen dropped to one knee and turned her head downwards. She had no desire to lose his favor by gazing upon him.

"Despite what your mentor taught you, I am not so short-tempered that I will strike down my servants merely for looking at me. I know you are curious." Curious she may be, but years of lessons were hard to ignore. When she did not raise her head, the Baron's voice lost its levity. "I  _do_ , however, bear a grudge against those who  _disobey me_."

Swallowing quickly, she finally turned her eyes to the Dark Power. Strangely, the first word that came to her mind was  _'long'_. His right leg was curled up to his chest, the knee at the level of his chin and his arm wrapped around his shin, while the other leg was stretched out ahead of him; all four limbs were out of proportion with his torso and would all but ensure that he walked with a strange gait. The hand not scratching idly at his leg held a fat cigar, and though ash fell from the glowing tip, the flakes vanished before they could reach the ragged black slacks. A white shirt and purple waistcoat covered his chest – no doubt emaciated, if the thinness of his limbs was anything to go by – and the top button of the shirt was left undone to reveal the deep notch above his sternum. Chancing a quick glance at the Power's face, she could only blink when she found that, unlike the sable of the rest of his visible skin, his bald head was an ashen grey, almost as if the flesh was so thin that the white of his skull was evident.

He grinned, the Glasgow smile that split his gaunt cheeks revealing  _far_  too many teeth, as she stared at the top hat that was tilted so as to shadow his eyes and forehead. "It is still said that the eyes are the window to the soul, is it not?" he asked to her unvoiced question. "I doubt you are yet willing to gamble so recklessly with your own."

"N-No, Baron, I am not," she stuttered. That did at least explain why Elsie had stressed not to look upon him, if even making  _eye contact_  with the Baron risked death.

Death grunted and waved his cigar-bearing hand at the low-slung, lacquered table sitting on the frost-covered earth between them. "Come now,  _fiyèt_ , don't be shy. Join me."

The memory of the  _last_  time she came within arm's reach of the Dark Power came to mind, and she wondered if there was a polite way to refuse. She would much rather not wake up with blood pouring out of every hole in her head again. "I… I do not have appropriate attire, my lord," she deflected, gesturing to her unclad body.

"You are not one for modesty; where has all your boldness gone?" The white smoke flowed towards her despite his dismissive tone, vaporous tongues licking over her and leaving light fabric in their wake. The mist retreated, leaving her dressed in a diaphanous lavender negligee that did  _exceedingly_  little to hide her nakedness. Realizing that there was no way she was going to get out of the Baron's request, she slowly crept up to the table and curled up opposite the entity. She then grimaced at the comical lewdness Death's too-wide mouth displayed. "Ah, you truly would drive a saint to sin,  _ti kras jennès mwen_."

Her teeth ground at that term of endearment. While calling her his  _'little whore'_  was not  _untrue_ , per se, the way he said it sent shivers down her spine. There was something  _else_  there, and she fully agreed with her instincts telling her it could not possibly be a good for her continued existence.

"Paranoia is a useful thing, but only in moderation," the Baron chided, though it was veiled amusement rather than displeasure that colored his voice. "In excess, it makes enemies out of allies and blinds you to the obvious. Besides, what benefit would I possibly gain from plotting harm to one of my favorite pets?"

She swallowed the first retort that came to mind – though considering how the Baron was taking no pains to hide his ability to hear her thoughts as if they were spoken aloud, she knew such caution was ultimately pointless – and answered demurely, "Far be it from your servant to question your will."

He chuckled at her deflection. "You are indeed tetchy tonight. One would think your tryst with your little light witch would have left you a touch more mellow." Before she could deny his assertion about Luna being a light witch, the magic the blonde had used earlier that night notwithstanding, he took a puff of his cigar and drawled, "Now, I believe you are holding on to something of mine. I would…  _appreciate_  it being returned."

Jen blinked in shock, not expecting a demand like  _that_ , and then her eyes grew wide and shot to her lap when she felt something cold and hard press against her fingertips. Turning her right hand over and slowly unclenching it, she caught only the briefest glimpse of a round black stone before she flung it onto the table in front of her.

The Resurrection Stone glittered darkly back at her.

While she was asking herself how the Stone could have traveled the two hundred kilometers from Elsie's cottage near Cardiff to London and then followed her to an entirely different realm, her patron Power reached out and picked it up. "It has been quite a long time since I last saw  _this_ ," the Baron said with a cruel smile. "By its nature, it has spilled much less blood than its two 'siblings'; being made into a ring and having its purpose forgotten only further retarded its ability. A pity, that."

 _The Tale of the Three Brothers; the Wand, the Stone, and the Cloak. I wondered if it might be true. The depiction of the Baron in the story left me unsure – I_ _ **strongly**_ _doubt any man would find him so gullible or so honest as to trick him into giving away an invisibility cloak that he could not see through – but the Stone is hard evidence to ignore_. She grimaced as another thought came to her.  _Which means I now have a likely explanation for why my sonar couldn't feel Dumbledore's wand. How in the world can he be such a narrow-minded Light fool and at the same time wield a Dark Treasure?_

_Unless he is unaware of its true nature…_

The Baron chuckled, diverting her eyes from the tabletop to see him leaning back into the mist and rolling the Stone in his fingers. "Oh, that little man is  _well_  aware of just whose wand he holds, though in his disdain for the world beyond his carefully categorized spells and incantations, he has convinced himself that it was made by mortal men. As for his purpose in keeping it?" He snorted derisively. "He thinks that dying as its wielder will end its  _'blight'_  upon the world. Amusing, don't you think? That twig of mine has such a fickle loyalty that it has become legendary in its own right; why he would believe that his death would break its power rather than simply send it seeking a new carrier is beyond me.

"Truly, those three trinkets are some of my greatest works. And to think that I only created them on a whim," concluded Death with another laugh.

Leaning forwards despite herself, Jen repeated, "A  _whim_?"

"Yes, a whim. Rather than destroy those men as I first considered, I allowed them to bring about their ends themselves. I'm glad I did, too. It was  _far_  more amusing."

One corner of his mouth widened in a smirk, tobacco smoke streaming forth as though from a dragon's snout. "You might want to cover yourself,  _cheri_ ; your interest is getting rather  _pointed_." She crossed her arms under her breasts and sent a brief glare at him, which was the goal of his comment if his high-pitched cackle was anything to judge.

"That  _is_  very different than how the story I read tells it," she prompted.

"Because a thousand years have passed since it happened, and none of those men wanted to reveal the whole truth." Shaking his head, the Baron stuck his cigar in the far corner of his mouth and folded his arms behind his head to relax against. From the side not occupied with smoking, he muttered, "Let's see if I can remember how it all went…

"The three men of this tale, brothers all, were war-mages who had pledged their service to a lord who wished to become a king. Hearing that this crown-seeker had finally prepared himself to take the throne he so desired, they searched for a means by which to ensure his victory. His rival, though possessing of a smaller army, had many more wands in his ranks than did this princeling, and the brothers despaired that their liege lord's attempt to take his prize would fail. And so, they pleaded to me to give them an audience, and curious at the sheer  _boldness_  of these mortals, I chose to grant them their request."

"Wait, they were able to  _summon you_  from this realm?" came Jen's incredulous question. Her surprise was well warranted; though the Powers  _could_  come to the living world, as his presence at her most recent ritual proved, to her knowledge the Powers' Pact restricted them to appearing  _only_  to their avatars. For three men who were  _not_  his servants to speak with Death, face to face… " _How_?"

The Baron shrugged dismissively. "They sacrificed a village in its entirety. Every man, woman, and child. Every cat and dog and cow and goat. Every bird in every hedge. Every crop burned in the fields and every tree in the forest fell. If it was alive, they killed it, and then they Invited me to the ruins that remained.

"As I said, their dedication to their purpose intrigued me, so I came to them to discover what had driven them to undertake such a desperate plan and to beseech such a fearsome being as myself. They explained their need, and though I cared not a whit for their upcoming battle, I found myself interested in assisting them. Rare is the chance for us to influence the living world to that extent, and…" He laughed, the sound dark and foreboding. "I had been somewhat bored for the previous few centuries and looked forward to stretching my wings, as it were.

"Then they proved that, despite how unusual they first appeared, they were still only arrogant humans in the end.

"The youngest of the three brothers was the one who opened the path for me, but he forgot that I am  _Death_ , not the imps or ghasts or spirits his magics had called forth before. He  _demanded_  my assistance, thinking that I was bound to his will the way those creatures were, and I would have destroyed him there and then had the second-born, glib of tongue, not interrupted his brother and explained that they simply wished for tools that could be used on the distant battlefield. My wrath was already kindled at the insult I had been given, and I smiled and agreed even as I planned their destruction."

Jen winced and nodded.  _Those_  were the actions of the Baron she was familiar with.

"I peeled away their thoughts and peered into their pasts, and while they recovered from my curiosity, I chose the most amusing way to return their insolence a hundredfold. I told them that their plight had moved me and that I was willing to grant to each of them the tool he most desired for the coming war. The first brother, bravest and strongest, made his living in the thick of the fighting, and so he claimed for himself a wand as unyielding and powerful as he fancied himself to be. I agreed, plucking a branch off an elderberry tree and carving it into a wand. It was indeed more powerful than any mortal wand was or ever will be, but its loyalty is to none and its bloodlust is ever unable to be slaked.

"The second brother valued intelligence and knowledge, and he was the strategist of the three. He desired a way to conjure up the spirits of the dead so he might gather knowledge of his enemy from the armies that had recently fallen and gain wisdom from commanders and generals long gone. I do not recall the dead who have already passed through my realm, so instead I plucked a stone from the ground –  _this_ stone," the Baron repeated, flipping the Stone like a coin and catching it, "and enchanted it. Now, when spun three times, it speaks with pretty words and steers all who are foolish enough to use it onto a course that leads to their doom.

"The third brother was a coward, valuing his safety above all else; it was for this reason that he chose to traffic with denizens of other realms rather than face his foes directly. He  _did_ , in fact, request a cloak that no one, not even I, could see through, and so I wove together a cloak from the water taken from a well and gave it to him with my blessings, not that it was any more effective against my eyes than any other cloak of invisibility. Of the three objects, its effects are the most subtle: when worn, it leads the one under it into dangers he normally would avoid and gives the wearer a sense of bravado that sees him continue on rather than listen to his reason and turn back.

"You know the rest of the tale," he said with another smirk. "The elder brother, arrogant fool that he was, bragged about his treasure after drinking too much ale, and a crafty thief took it for himself after turning it on its first wielder. The middle brother, though he listened to the shades the stone brought to him without ill effects, returned to his home to find his young bride dead of the plague, and the whispering of the illusion along with his grief saw him take his own life. His neighbor spotted the stone when the man's property was being sold off and took it for himself, and the stone engineered the end of several more magical and nonmagical humans alike before it was forged into a ring, its powers and legend later forgotten but to a few. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the results of that trick so much I have repeated it a few other times in the centuries since."

Jen's eyes widened in surprise at that aside.  _That_ _ **would**_ _explain why the story of the_ Wòch nan Namn Fou _Elsie told me when I was younger doesn't exactly match up with the Tale of the Three Brothers. It was about an entirely different stone_. As for the fact that there were  _more_  of these murderous rocks wandering about the world? That realization made her shudder.

"The youngest brother, despite being the greatest target of my anger, managed to live the longest of the three. However, while his devilish luck protected  _him_ from the danger the cloak drew him to, his various companions fell one after another. Eventually rumors sprang up that the wizard was either cursed or had killed his friends himself, and when the accusations grew too much to bear, he gave the cloak to his eldest son and caused his demise himself. The cloak has since been passed down the family line, pruning the tree until"—Jen leaned forward in eagerness while the Baron puffed contentedly on his cigar for a long moment—"until as of now, there are only three of that bloodline left, a man and his two children."

"So that family is almost extinct?" she asked with morbid curiosity. "What will happen when the rest die off?"

The Baron's shrug was the epitome of nonchalance. "One child is protected from the power and peril of the cloak due to the actions of the father and the choices the child made for itself, so the bloodline  _technically_ will continue undaunted. As for the branch that still bears my grudge, who knows? Perhaps it will end in the next decade, perhaps the next century. It matters not to me, for I know it  _will_  end one day or another; all taking longer means is that even more of that bloodline will pay for the insult of their progenitor.

"And when the line  _does_  perish? Perhaps I will reclaim the cloak; perhaps I will permit it to move on to another. I have yet to decide."

"That's…" Jen shook her head, unsure just how to feel about the tale. All she knew was that she was very,  _very_  glad that  _she_  was not part of that cursed family. Another question popped into her head, and while she really did  _not_  want to ask it for fear that it might ruin the Baron's good mood, he already knew it had crossed her mind, and she  _was_  curious. "I have one more thing to ask. The story I heard had another part; it said that whosoever gathers the three items together will become… well…"

"The  _'Master of Death_ '?" the Baron asked softly. At her hesitant nod, he only laughed. "What kind of  _fool_  do you humans take me for? As if I would ever give  _any_ entity, let alone a mere mortal, the opportunity to gain  _dominion_  over  _me_. Do not be ridiculous."

Humming to himself, the Baron again examined the Stone sitting between them. "Well,  _sèvitè mwen kirye_ , it is your lucky day." She looked over to him in cautious curiosity upon hearing that thoughtful tone. "I've changed my mind. I want you to keep an eye on this for me for a time." He pulled his arms down from behind his head, and one long-fingered hand plucked the Stone from the tabletop and stuffed it into the burning end of the cigar in his mouth. A deep drag, and when he blew out the resulting smoke, it did not billow out like a cloud but swerved through the air like a swimming snake to curl around her throat.

"Yes, that will do  _nicely_ ," Death muttered to himself. Louder, he reminded her, "You have done very well, but do not forget that my favor can be lost as well as gained, and the consequences of that feat are  _far_  less enjoyable. Now that the abomination's soul jars have been destroyed, you have plenty of time to find him and kill him."

A dismissive wave of his hand had the mist that surrounded them sweep back in and hide him from view.

* * *

Her eyes fluttering open, Jen poked her head out of the sheets wrapped around her and gazed through the window at the breaking dawn.  _There is no good reason for me to be awake this early_ , she thought while climbing out of the bed. A long stretch removed the worst of the aches that had appeared overnight. They were likely the result of traveling to that desolate realm between life and the afterlife, but she would take a little soreness over bleeding from every orifice each and every time.

It was when she twisted her neck around to relieve the persistent pain that had settled there that she found it. Her hand moved to massage the stressed muscles, but before it could reach her skin it encountered a band of some material. It  _felt_  like leather. A hurried check in the mirror proved that it  _looked_  like leather. Her sonar, however, shouted quite clearly that it was anything  _but_.

Mostly because her sonar could not pick up anything at all, just a void in the world.

The artefact itself was rather unimpressive, just an inch-wide strip of black hide that encircled her neck. She fumbled with her fingers looking for a buckle or clasp or  _something_ , and finding a spot where the leather changed to something harder, she twisted the choker around to get a better look at it.

What stared back was the Resurrection Stone, the triangular symbol inscribed on the surface now touched up with fresh gold leaf and the gem resting in what looked like a solid gold setting with six of the same lily-like projections she could find on the scar on her wrist.

 _So_ _ **this**_ _is what he meant when he said he was giving it to me to keep an eye on it_. Unfortunately, this was also not the kind of accessory she could freely wear anywhere she wanted; Luna and her father, for instance, would be able to recognize it instantly, and if Dumbledore knew as much about the Hallows as the Baron thought he did, there was no doubt that a single glance would tell him everything she did not want him to know.

An idea entered her mind, and she held her thumb and index finger a short distance apart; as soon as her hand neared the collar, a cutting charm backed by dark magic sprang to life.  _After all_ , she told herself while applying the dark purple curse to the material,  _I'll have an easier time keeping the Stone safe if it's in a secure, warded location rather than on my person, right?_ Sparks leapt from the leather as it resisted her spell, and after another few seconds the dark charm skipped off the choker and out from between her fingers to score a long cut up the side of her neck. "Damn it!" she cursed, quickly applying more dark magic to the wound to heal it without leaving a scar and then vanishing the few drops of blood that had leaked out.

Checking the collar itself proved that despite her efforts, there was not a mark marring the surface of the leather.

 _I don't know what I was thinking. Treasures are all but indestructible; trying to incinerate Ravenclaw's diadem and the Resurrection Stone on the solstice should have reminded me about_ _ **that**_ _._  She sighed and shook her head.  _On the bright side, that the Baron likes me enough to craft a Treasure for me – even if it's just adding something to a previous one – and not curse it is a good thing, I suppose. Maybe it even means I'll get the chance to return as a revenant when I die_.

She had no clue how white magic operated, but for black witches, there was no such thing as retirement; once pledged to the Dark Powers, a witch or wizard continued in their service until death. For the Baron, the Gatekeeper to the Afterlife, things were not  _quite_ so cut and dry, and many a white mage had learned the hard way that cutting down one of Death's avatars was a very,  _very_  bad idea. Far more white wizards became ghosts than black, primarily so they could avoid the risk of encountering one of the Powers whom they had offended.

For her and other avatars of Death, there  _was_  an upside to serving a Power who could keep control over them even after their lives were finished. If he found one of them interesting enough or devoted enough, he could give her the opportunity to become a revenant, a state of non-life not totally dissimilar to a ghost's. Unlike normal spirits, however, revenants were not bound to the living world but to Death's realm, which allowed them to cross over and visit both life  _and_ afterlife at will. Additionally, revenants retained the ability to manipulate the physical world to some limited degree; Elsie had told her that some of the Muggle horror stories about poltergeists or demonic possession were actually the result of a revenant having too much time on his hands.

 _So I'm likely to get that opportunity, provided I don't bollocks things up, but in return I have to wear the Resurrection Stone around my neck until the Baron either gets bored or wants it back, either of which may well take my entire life_. She sighed.  _At least it taught me one thing: never count on the Baron to give a nice, non-complicated Christmas present_.

* * *

The ringing of the alarm clock on the bedside table woke one of the two occupants of the room, and a thin, fair arm reached out from under the covers to feel around for it. After the third attempt, the owner of the arm finally managed to switch the incessantly irritating machine off.

Paula sat up and glared blearily at the clock at it displayed the time: almost eleven o'clock in the morning. That was not nearly as much of a lie-in as someone might think; Candyland's doors closed at four and cleaning generally took another hour or two.

The recently turned ten-year-old was tempted,  _so_ tempted to drop back down in the bed and sleep for a few more hours, but instead she pulled herself out with a grumble and grabbed the thick robe lying on the floor. Drew mumbled a bit before he rolled over and spread out across the mattress, and she smiled softly down at him. He was two years her senior, but both of them were too old to appeal to the various patrons that visited their establishment; the only reason Dicky Hutchins kept them around was because  _he_  had no idea how to run the business properly while  _they_  had been trained by Mama on all the particulars.

Paula shook her head, pushing her tangle of red hair out of her face immediately afterwards, and scooped up a small cardboard box. Fishing out one of the last cigarettes along with the yellow plastic lighter, she made a mental note to pester Dicky to grab her another pack. She did not smoke much, maybe one stick every week or week and a half, and mostly on days like today where she had to get up early. In this case, her early morning was because she had to set out everyone's Christmas presents and then prepare the bar and stage for the night's special holiday performances.

Dicky had always had a problem with her habit, but she couldn't help it. She had gotten hooked on them back when she was younger and still lived with her father. Her mother had been out of the picture for as long as she could remember, and as a result she was the biggest daddy's girl Herefordshire had ever seen. She and her father had lived out in the country, the nearest neighbor quite a distance away, and except for the visitors he often had over to the house, it was just the pair of them. He raised her to be a Good Little Girl, and as a reward he would let her do Big Girl things like smoke and drink. The drinking she could do without, but the promise of cigarettes made sure she would be the best Good Little Girl in the whole wide world.

Then, when she was six years old, her life fell apart. Cops barged into her house and arrested her daddy, and ignoring her cries of protests they dragged her away and took her to a house with lots of other kids and two adults whom the bobbie said would be her new parents; she begged and pleaded for the policeman to take her back home to her daddy, but he told her that she would never ever see him again. Alone and scared, she made extra,  _extra_  sure to be a Good Little Girl, but instead of praising her and rewarding her like her daddy did, they screamed at her, and all the kids with them called her  _'slag'_  and  _'freak'_ and  _'whore'_.

Now that she was older and wiser, Paula knew that sleeping naked in her father's bed and letting his friends rub their hands all over her body were not 'normal', but at the time? At the time she was confused and lost and just wanted the world to go back to  _making sense_.

That instant rejection – and on her first night there, no less – signaled the start of a routine that would last throughout the next year. She would run away from whatever foster home the bobbies put her with, they would find her within the next few days to a week when she was inevitably caught stealing food or picking pockets, they would take her to another house, and she would run away again. Hitchhiking was a crapshoot at best: since she was so young, getting cars to  _stop_  wasn't the problem, but all too often the drivers would insist on taking her back to her old foes and leaving her there. On the other hand, a good lie could often convince them to drop her off at a nearby petrol station, and more often than not, the scragglier and dirtier the person who pulled over was, the better chance she would have at getting them to agree to take her someplace that was  _not_  a police station.

One day, she flagged down a car being driven by a man with a thick beard, and when she told him that she was lost and needed her to take her to someplace with a phone, he not only called her out on her lie – normally a bad,  _bad_  sign – but also told her that he had a friend he could take her to where she could bunk for a while. He denied that he would give her over to the police, and instead he drove her all the way to a little town named Avryporth. He let her out at a small building where they were met by an exceptionally average-looking man and a black-haired twelve-year-old girl. The girl had walked around her, somehow examining her despite the red cloth wound around her eyes, and promptly told the man to pay the driver for delivering her. The girl then introduced herself as Jen, though Paula would find out from the other kids that everyone but Hutchins called her  _'Mama'_  or at most  _'Mama Jen'_ , and told her that here she would be rewarded and even expected to be a Good Little Girl.

Being sold to Candyland, a place where she was  _accepted_  instead of being made fun of and screamed at, was probably the best thing that ever happened to her.

Shoving open the door to the 'gallery', as she had always heard it called, Paula blinked in astonishment at the sight that awaited her. The tables, though they had only been cleared off the night before, now stood almost gleaming, and the stage had thick garlands and jars filled with red and green flames strewn around it. The tiny Christmas tree Drew and Dicky had carried in a few days ago now towered over her and had its fair share of fire-ornaments, tinsel, and many more ornaments than she could ever remember them owning. Underneath the boughs lay all the presents she had wrapped and hidden in the closet of the manager's office, along with twice as many that she could not for the life of her remember buying.

And the cause of all these changes sat at the bar, red Santa hat sitting at a jaunty angle on her head and steaming mug held loosely in her hand. "Merry Christmas, Paula."

"Mama!" She resisted the urge to lunge for the older girl; she was  _ten_  now, and that meant she needed to have a  _bit_  of decorum. Instead, she calmly walked over and squeezed Mama Jen in a tight embrace that was  _completely_  appropriate for her age.

The black-haired girl hugged her back without reservation, and Paula had to fight the urge to stay there. Mama Jen truly was the closest thing she had ever had to a big sister or a mother, and despite the grumbling the witch had made when Paula chose to use that particular address, she had never been rebuffed. "I'm surprised to see you up this early," the witch said, nudging her to the neighboring stool. "I figured everyone would still be sound asleep."

"They are; I just had stuff to do. Stuff you look like you've already done for me." Mama merely smirked a bit at that. "Why are  _you_  here? Not that I don't want you here," she quickly added, "but…"

"Two reasons. First, I had to bring those over." The brunette jerked her head at the packages spread out under the tree. "After you told me that Tommy and Crystal had been shoplifting, I realized I have been… somewhat neglectful of my responsibilities. I don't know exactly what everyone wears, but I figured getting plenty of shirts and trousers in multiple sizes should solve most of the issues." She shrugged. "And if not, I left the receipts in the office. Everything was paid for in cash; feel free to take back whatever you want."

And she wondered why all the kids called her  _'Mama_ '!

"You didn't have to do that, you know," Paula said quietly. Dicky took more than his fair share out of the club's profits and left them to actually run the business, true, but they could manage on their own, just with a few difficulties. The older girl didn't need to burn through all her money for them!

"I kind of did," came the gentle retort. "Besides, money isn't a huge issue for me anymore; I can afford to spend it on you kids." Smirking at the cigarette now hanging from limp lips, she smiled and fished around in the pocket of her jacket. "And I got some things  _extra_  for you and Drew."

Paula looked down at the small present in her hands and wasted no time tearing through the paper. What was revealed was a new lighter in an expensive metal case, an image of a rearing unicorn covering the side. With a bright smile, she turned it around in her hands; she was not sure how Mama had managed it – other than  _'magic'_ , of course – but no matter how she flipped the case, the unicorn moved with it, almost as if there were actually a tiny figurine sitting in the middle of the box and the metal around it had been made semi-transparent. Flicking it open, she stared in confusion at the device. There was no hole for the flame to come out of, just a shallow pit with strange symbols scratched around it, and the normal wheel and fork assembly was replaced by a ridged disc laying flat on top of the metal.

"I can't claim to have  _made_  it, exactly," Mama was saying as she examined her gift, "but I  _did_  do some work on it so it looks normal and so you don't have to be a witch to use it. Just push the button to turn it on"—Paula did so, and a flame suddenly appeared in the pit—"and either push it again or flip the lid to put it out. You can also make the fire higher or lower by turning the dial, and since it runs on magic, you don't need to worry about ever refilling it, either."

"Thank you." She gave her Mama another hug, which the older girl was just as welcoming of as her earlier one, and slipped the closed lighter into her robe's pocket. Now she was curious what the witch planned to give Drew, but deciding to wait and not spoil the surprise, she asked, "You said there were  _two_  reasons you were here. What's the other one?"

The witch sighed and smiled tiredly. "I can't slip things like that past you anymore, can I? I… Well, I needed some space to think about a few things." The former manager's hand came up to fiddle with a leather collar sitting around her neck for a few seconds before she realized what she was doing. "Some stuff came up recently, and where I'm living now isn't exactly the best place to get some peace and quiet. I knew everyone here would be asleep, though, so I could get some time for myself  _and_  finish off my errands.

"But enough about that," she said, waving her hand through the air as if to disperse a foul odor. "Tell me what I've missed around here. I want to hear about  _everything_."

* * *

**And** _**now** _ **you see why there will be no more Candyland in this book. Paula's backstory makes me** _**desperately** _ **want to scrub my brain with bleach.**

**Creole Corner:** _fiyèt_ —child;  _cheri_ —dearie;  _sèvitè mwen kirye_ —my curious servant

**I've seen plenty of stories where Harry becomes an all-powerful immortal because he's the "Master of Death", and I've even enjoyed some of them. The only issue I have is that no matter which side of the Hallows' creation debate you support (whether they were made by Death or the Peverell brothers), it** _**still** _ **makes no sense for them to give their user special powers when they're brought together.**

**As for Dumbledore's opinion that the title describes anyone who accepts his or her mortality, that is so ludicrous that it doesn't even bear serious consideration.** _**That** _ **is mastering one's own** _**fear** _ **of death, not death itself. Even poetic license only extends so far.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	29. Awkward Questions

**I'm actually kind of shocked by the number of people who like, or at least appreciate, the Candyland scenes; shocked and absurdly pleased. And just to address a concern several people voiced: last chapter had the last Candyland scene in** _**Black Princess Ascendant** _ **, not the last in this series. It** _**will** _ **show up again in the future.**

**Shikyo no Kyoufu:**  Fighting the Baron is… kind of a lost cause from the start. This story has a bit of a Classical tone in that there are things – destiny, the Powers – that you just  _can't_  fight, not with any hope of succeeding. Well, Classical or Lovecraftian, I suppose. There is only  _one_  Power a mortal can actually 'defeat', but 1) he's technically already dead and 2) even then, not  _really_.

 **bissek:**  As in canon – where no one ever popped out of the woodwork in person or in person to say, "Hey, cousin! How you doing?" – here James and Danny are the sole surviving Potters. Wizarding families, barring the Weasleys, don't seem to reproduce often, and combined with Death's grudge causing so many Potters to die before they can have kids, the family is nearly extinct.

**Since my other story,** _**What Happens in Vegas** _ **, is rapidly drawing to a close, I have put up a poll for what you guys want me to pick up for my next project. I'm not going to stop writing** _**this** _ **story, have no fear of that, but two tales going at a time keeps the muse happy and productive, which means this series keeps chugging along.**

**Also, if you voted the first day I put it up (Jan 29), make sure you vote again. I reset it late that night, so all the responses I already had went bye-bye.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did Dumbledore announce where the Philosopher's Stone was located to the entire school instead of keeping quiet about it and putting the strongest locking spells he could find on the door so no student could just wander into Fluffy's lair? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 29  
** **Awkward Questions and Uncomfortable Answers**

"This emergency session of the Wizengamot is now in session!"

Jen rapped her fingertips on the desk in front of her in a series of staccato bursts while the blonde witch standing behind Dumbledore's podium returned to her seat. This congregation was already different than those she had attended on the odd weekends this year; there was no idle chatter as people took their places in the Chamber's stands, no last-minute wheeling and dealing. Everyone was serious and, if their pale faces were any indication, more than a little terrified.

Then again, considering how Voldemort had popped up only a few hours after their session the previous Saturday, that honestly should not come as any great surprise.

The old man stood and walked up to the podium. "One week ago today, the Dark Lord known as Voldemort"—the number of people who didn't shudder numbered less than a dozen—"or, more commonly, You-Know-Who, appeared in Diagon Alley. He destroyed three buildings, proclaimed his return from his previous state of incorporeality, killed eight Hit Wizards, and then retreated when all of the DMLE that could be gathered Apparated into the Alley, Madam Bones at their head. This attack cannot be ignored." He pulled off his half-moon glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose for a moment before replacing them. "The floor is open for suggestions."

Cue the cacophony of everyone yelling at once.

The black witch had to hold back a snort as she parsed out some of the suggestions. Negotiate? Capitulate? It was no shock that most of these comments came from her and Sirius's neighbors, placed as they were near the edge of the section reserved for the Dark Houses; all she had to do was look out the corner of her eye to find Lucius Malfoy demanding that the Minister organize a parley, the Houses of Nott and Carrow his most vehement supporters. Glancing over to the Neutral Houses, she saw that the largest segment of the Wizengamot was fractured: most were afraid, some pleased and trying to hide it, and a few even looked bloodthirsty. Amelia and Susan were both scowling, and a quick glance to where Stella Zabini sat showed the succubus gnawing worriedly on her knuckle.

 _That's less than encouraging_ , Jen thought with narrowed eyes.  _Then again, Sirius_ _did_ _say that in the first War, Voldemort counted Dark creatures in his army, though no mention was made of the Lilin. Of course, since he already had vampires, maybe he just didn't want_ _ **two**_ _species that feed on mankind in his troops._

 _I'll have to keep an eye on her. If it looks like more succubi are going to come to Britain from Italy, I might have to break out the Order of Hunters costume again and remind her that's a_ ** _bad_** _idea_.

Dumbledore raised his wand and fired into the air a spell that sounded off like a cannon blast. "There will be order!" he shouted. Once the assembly calmed down, he continued, "Anyone who has an idea of what to do, light your wands and wait to be called upon. Dowager Longbottom."

"Thank you, Chief Warlock," the blonde witch replied as she stood. Crossing her thick arms over her chest, the regent for the Ancient and Most Noble House of Longbottom declared, "I will be brief. All of us remember what happened the last time You-Know-Who was active. Disappearances. Murders, of those magical  _and_  those not. Wizards and witches placed under the Imperius Curse and forced to commit acts they would never otherwise be capable of, even slaughtering their own families. I myself lost my husband, my son, and my daughter-in-law to those  _monsters_ ," she snarled, "and I know I am not the only one who did. How many of us had family and friends torn away from us? How many suffered under this Dark Lord? And are we willing to go through that pain again? No!

"The answer before us is simple. We. Must. Fight!"

"We did that!" Lord Kennewick shouted back. "And you just reminded us of happened when we did! Those who fought him were the ones who died; those who did not… did not."

"You are  _seriously_  suggesting that we just roll over and let this madman do whatever he wants?" James demanded with a sneer. "You, Kennewick, are a  _coward_."

The Wizengamot burst into a clamor at that, many crying for an apology, others denigrating Kennewick, and not a few demanding an honor duel. Another blast from Dumbledore caused the din to die away again. "Inflammatory comments like that have no place in this session, Lord Potter. As for your own words, Lord Kennewick, they could all too easily be misconstrued as borderline  _treasonous_." He stroked his long, white beard and nodded to the eldest member of the body. "Lady McElroy, you have the floor."

The old, haggard witch nodded. "Thank you. I believe it should be obvious that Voldemort is a rebel, one who seeks to overthrow our government. He made his ambitions extensively clear in the seventies, and I doubt from his recent behavior that he has changed in the time since. Therefore, before we create any concrete plans on how to handle his reappearance, I propose that he be formally deemed an enemy of the state."

The silence that followed her declaration was almost oppressive. Finally, Lord Bradley broke it. "You are proposing that, even more than treating You-Know-Who as a terrorist, we outright go to war against him and his followers."

"I am. We cannot afford to hamstring our Aurors and our Hit Wizards against an enemy that murdered  _hundreds_ , not like we did last time. They must be able to meet force with force."

"I see," the eyepatch-wearing wizard said in a quiet voice before looking up again. "I second the motion."

"We have a motion and a second," Dumbledore acknowledged quietly. "All who support Lady McElroy's proposal, display a white light. All opposed, red."

Gradually, wands were raised and lights appeared in the many boxes of the Wizengamot Chambers. Some Houses, such as Longbottom and Potter and Bones, did so almost instantly; the Death Eaters Jen knew about were equally conspicuous in their reluctance as well as the actual votes. Though not unanimous by any means, the result was still overwhelming, and Dumbledore sighed. "The votes are counted. We… are at war."

"Then, as per Ministry procedure, I move that Cornelius Fudge be removed as Minister of Magic"—Fudge squeaked from his seat near Dumbledore and stared at Augusta with wide eyes—"and replaced by the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Amelia Bones."

"Surely that is not necessary—" Malfoy began, only to be cut off by Sirius.

"It most certainly is. In times of war, the Ministry is  _always_  run by the head of the DMLE. It is not a motion that needs to be voted on, merely protocol that needs to be carried out." He looked at Dumbledore. "Am I incorrect, Chief Warlock?"

The headmaster shook his head. "No, you are not. Cornelius Fudge, as the spokesman for the Wizengamot, I would like to thank you for your many years of service to the government of Britain. Please, depart your seat. Amelia Bones, come forwards."

The former Minister left his spot with obvious reluctance, and the look he shot Amelia as she passed him was anything but friendly. The regent for the third and youngest of the Ancient and Most Noble Houses climbed into the Minister's box, and Dumbledore said, "As Lord Black has already stated, your appointment is required, but in the interest of maintaining tradition, I must ask you: Do you, Amelia Bones, swear to uphold the laws and customs of magical Britain; to protect her from all threats, both from within and without; and to discharge your duties faithfully for as long as they are yours?"

"I do so swear, Chief Warlock," she answered with a solemn nod.

"Then the Wizengamot welcomes you into our midst, Minister Bones."

Turning to the assembled Houses, Amelia declared, "I have only two announcements that I must make before I allow you to return to our previous topic. First, I hereby appoint Cornelius Fudge as my ambassador to the Muggle Ministry, as well as my advisor." The jealousy and anger that had been on said wizard's face abruptly vanished, and after a few moments of uncomprehending silence, a beaming smile replaced them. "And second, since being chosen as Minister prohibits me from serving as regent for House Bones and our House's scion, my niece Susan, is fifteen and has already been Introduced, I request that she be accepted as a full and voting member of this body, effective immediately."

"Well played, Amelia," Sirius muttered to himself as that discussion progressed below them.

Jen quirked one eyebrow. "Really? I would think that naming  _Fudge_  as her advisor, let alone her ambassador to the Muggles, would be a mistake more than anything."

"That's because you're thinking too short-term," her Head of House chided. "For one, he's been in that chair for almost fourteen years; if anyone knows all the ins and outs, not just in the law but also the people, it's him. For two, there's a reason he's been the Minister for this long. He keeps the Ministry running, he doesn't step on people's toes, and it's an open secret that his opinions can be bought for the right price. She knows that he'll almost certainly regain the position when this is all over, and by keeping him on as ambassador, not only does she get to delegate that duty, she also earns some of his good will. With that, it becomes more likely that he will return her to the DMLE rather than throwing her out of the building like he did when he took over from Bagnold."

"Huh." She glanced over at the man again. "Is it really that probable that he will be Minister after this war is over? I thought public opinion was rather against him at the moment."

"And that would hurt him…  _if_  it were the general populace that elected the Minister," Sirius explained as he held his wand up again, a white light signifying his support for Susan's voice to be heard. "However, that's not how it works, not really. There is an election, true, but the public only counts for a quarter of the votes. With the Neutral and Dark Houses, who benefited the most from Fudge's corruption, making up more than two-thirds of the Wizengamot – and thereby more than half the electorate – his reelection is all but assured." The Animagus thought for a moment. "And to be honest, the common wizard having even that much influence is a very recent development, relatively speaking. Prior to Dumbledore becoming Chief Warlock and helping along motions from the Light Houses while hindering those from the Dark, the public's votes were taken for the purposes of soothing the frustrated masses but were irrelevant to the actual election."

"And of course, with the Wizengamot being the body that also nominates the candidates the public can vote for…" Jen trailed off with a knowing tone.

"Exactly. For good or for ill, the Wizengamot is and always has been the true power behind our government." The impromptu lesson over, and the House of Bones retaining their voice in the assembly despite Susan's age, they turned back to the next topic up for debate: whether the DMLE should be granted the right to use lethal force.

* * *

Tracey drew her cloak tighter about her shoulders and checked the Warming Charm on Vesta's basket. She had no clue why the note Jen had sent her a few days earlier had said to wait in the icy courtyard in the middle of the winter night, nor why she was repeatedly warned not to use any kind of flame or light while she was waiting. All she knew was that she had been waiting here for the past ten minutes, freezing her feet off all the while, and her temper was rising with every degree her body heat fell. "Where in Merlin's name  _is_ she?"

"Right here." The Slytherin could barely withhold her shriek of surprise at the sudden voice from nowhere, and a ripple in the air above her caused her to look up to see Jen fading into sight, suspended from nothing in the middle of the sky. The black-haired witch gently glided to the ground and continued nonchalantly, "Sorry I'm late. I got… held up back in London."

"Okay," she said tentatively. Flying had never been her favorite thing, and that was on brooms. Going into the sky with nothing to support her, on the other hand… Yeah, no. "What, um, what held you up?"

Jen grumbled inaudibly for a moment. "Sirius and Aunt Cissy found out that I had done something  _'stupid'_  and were chewing me out about it. It's nothing important," she immediately added when Tracey opened her mouth, "at least, it's  _probably_  nothing important. If it turns out to be, it will be my problem to deal with, and even if not…" With a sigh, Jen admitted, "Much as I dislike it, they did have a point."

"Ah." There really was nothing more to say to that. Jen clearly would not go into any depth about it, and despite the sparsity of information, Tracey could already tell it had little to nothing to do with her or her interests. "So… That, er,  _process_  you offered. Are we going to get to that anytime soon?"

"Yes. We're late as it is; it's not too long till midnight." Jen raised one eyebrow. "I already have the ritual site set up, so the only question is: do you prefer to fly or walk?"

"Walk."

The Ravenclaw shrugged at her instant response and stepped over to the corner of the courtyard closest to the castle proper before placing her hand over the masonry. " _Sub rosa_." The wall shuddered for a moment, and then the stones began  _twisting_ , rearranging themselves while a section of the corner slid downwards into the ground to reveal a spiraling staircase. "Sirius told me about this when I mentioned needing to sneak back into the castle," the dark witch said even as she began the descent, Tracey hurrying to keep up and a pair of floating spheres appearing and shining bright white lights onto their surroundings. "He only found it in his last year, but he used it primarily just after he graduated. He still had a… Well, there were a couple of seventh-years he was shagging every week, not to put too fine a point on it. It doesn't lead outside the wards – none of the secret passageways do, at least none he knows about – but the opening is maybe twenty feet away from the boundary in the Forbidden Forest."

 _We're going into the Forbidden Forest in the middle of the the night?!_  "Jen, I already don't like this plan."

Though she could not see the other girl's face, the rolling eyes were evident in the tone of the response. "Tracey, it's just a forest. Yes, it can be dangerous, but we're only going to be there for as long as it takes to get out from under the wards so I can teleport us elsewhere and then the same time to get inside them again when I bring you back. I think we'll be safe for those thirty seconds." Jen turned around and smiled at her, still walking backwards without a hint of trepidation. "Have a little faith in me. I've invested too much of my time in you to let you wander off and get eaten now."

… _Fair enough_. They wandered down the narrow hallway for a few minutes before Tracey spoke again. "Thank you, by the way. Not just for this, but also the Christmas present you sent." Her eyes drifted down to the wicker basket in her hands. She had been shocked and confused when she woke up a week earlier to find that the present waiting for her at the foot of her bed had contained a compass and a cat collar, but the latter emotion had changed to joyous wonder when she read the included letter that explained that there was a small enchantment on both items that would allow her to use the compass to find Vesta anywhere so long as the kitten was not under wards specifically meant to block scrying.

In comparison, the rum-filled chocolates and the slim volume on simple enchantments using Futhark runes she had purchased in Hogsmeade were both inadequate and redundant.

"You are quite welcome. Your own gifts were likewise appreciated." Jen's smirk turned sharp with wicked humor. "Very much so, actually. It turns out that the candies you got me are Sirius's favorites, and my cousin Dora and I had an absolutely  _splendid_  time enjoying them in front of him."

"Oh. Well, you're welcome, then. Though if I had known the book was beneath your level—"

"Tracey, it's fine," the other teen said with a laugh. "I  _bought_  the collar; I didn't make it. And while I am used to using runes for rituals, that is a very different thing from enchanting. What is it that has you feeling so indebted to me tonight?"

The Slytherin came to a stop, Jen halting a single step later. "Jen. You set up a  _ritual_  to protect Vesta from my grandfather. A ritual that, if you get caught, could see you serving time in  _Azkaban_. Excuse me if I'm feeling  _'indebted'_  that you're taking this kind of a risk just because I—"

She stopped, her torrent of self-conscious gratitude cut off when Jen walked towards her and pulled her into a tight embrace. "Tracey," the girl whispered into her ear, "it's going to be okay. I'm not going to go to Azkaban. I've done stuff like this before; I know how to hide the evidence. Vesta will be safe for the next couple of years until your grandfather finally kicks the bucket and you're named Lady Davis, and then the collar and the ritual and  _anything else_  we have to do until then  _won't matter_." Pulling away, Jen smiled softly and continued, "Besides, once this is all done, neither of us is going to ever speak of it to anyone, are we?"

"No," she said, unable to hold back the incredulous laugh that spilled forth. She dashed the tears from her cheeks. "No, we're not. But Jen… Seriously, thank you. For everything."

"You can thank me when it's all over."

Perhaps five minutes later, they came to a gently raising stairwell at the end of the tunnel, and Jen tapped the rough rock wall it led to. The stone split and spread apart like a set of double doors; not wasting a moment, and completely contrary to her earlier profession of confidence, the Ravenclaw pulled her out the swiftly closing gap and threaded through the trees to a small clearing not far from the entrance to the passage. Jen spun on her heels, never letting go of her grasp on Tracey's hand, and with the familiar feeling of being squeezed through a too-tight tube they Disapparated away.

Tracey stumbled a moment when they reached their destination and cooed reassurances to the kitten mewling in distress before looking out at the surrounding countryside. "Where are we?"

"Wiltshire." Jen waved at her to follow and continued, "Not far from Stonehenge, actually; maybe a kilometer at most. When Elsie did this to Loki, we were actually inside it, but she was astonishingly fast at getting everything set up and taken down, so no one noticed a national monument going under a Muggle-Repelling Charm for a few minutes in the middle of the night. I'm not that good, so while I don't know for a fact that the location actually has any importance whatsoever, I figured someplace close by but a little more remote so we can take our time would be better."

As if a veil was suddenly pulled away from the world, a small dip in the landscape came into sight. Tracey's eyebrows rose in surprise when she saw the design carved into the ground: three triangles set inside each other, the corners curving clockwise slightly, with a number of strange symbols set between the lines. Not Futhark or Ogham or Egyptian; she honestly did not know what the runes were, and with a glance at the serious cast of Jen's features as the other witch looked carefully over the arrangement, she decided now was probably not the best time to ask.

Jen reached over and lifted one side of the hinged lid of the basket, and Vesta made her displeasure at being carted around quite clear. "Hush," she whispered, pulling the cat out and stroking her gently. Now in the arms of someone familiar, the little kitten calmed considerably, though the speed with which she fell asleep in Jen's arms was more than a little suspect.

"It would be… bad if she got the idea to wander around while we do this," Jen explained as she gently set Vesta in the nearest corner of the innermost triangle. "Sleeping through it, on the other hand, won't cause any problems. Go ahead and step into the triangle as well." Tracey nodded and set the basket down, but before she could move again, Jen cleared her throat. "You did remember what I told you about appropriate dress, right?"

 _Unfortunately_. She sighed but pulled off the cloak, a simple white slip all that protected her from the biting winds. Her boots joined the cloak, and she winced as the cold, boggy ground stole the warmth from her feet. Gritting her teeth, she pointed out, "You know, your letter never mentioned why I had to wear this."

"Other corner." At her flat stare, one leg raised to step over the lines and symbols, Jen explained, "This is a ritual; every little detail is important. See the curves in the points? Imagine them to be waves. We want the magic to pull traits from you and carry them over to Vesta. Unless you  _wanted_  to turn into a catgirl while you're here, because we can do that, too." She sighed and walked to the other side of the ritual space. "As for the dress, it's for the same reason. The more elements we add, the greater the chance of developing complications. Just be glad I'm going easy on you; Elsie made me do this totally starkers."

"I'm gonna have to pass on that one."

"I thought you might." Stepping into the space herself, Jen waved her hand and summoned a peculiar staff from the ground, the long stick bent in half and then twisted into a helix. She planted the staff into the third corner and hopped out. "Three is the number for harmonization, but that means there's an extra space when all we're trying to do is forge a one-way connection between two things. The staff acts as a stopgap, preventing you from gaining those additional ears or tail I mentioned, cute though they would look on you." Tracey rolled her eyes at the teasing tone that last comment was delivered in; somehow, she doubted Jen was planning on ever letting this go.

Jen picked up a large flask and popped off the lid, and Tracey's nose wrinkled as a sour copper smell hit her. " _Ugh_. What is that?"

"Blood. There is a similar process I could use were I just giving one object attributes of another that doesn't need this, but since you're both living things, it's necessary."

"Blood?" The other girl nodded distractedly at her question, too busy filling the outermost triangle with the thick crimson liquid to notice the squeak in her voice. "I… Er… That isn't…  _human_  blood, is it?"

The dark witch stopped where she was, turning the flask over to cut off the red stream and raising cold purple eyes to stare into Tracey's own.

 _She isn't saying anything. Oh Merlin and Morgana, is it really?! But that… What the hell! And she's just staring and if that's from a_ _person_ _she might have taken it herself and she won't want me to tell anyone and oh Merlin what if she needs to shut me up and_ —

Her panicked stream of consciousness stumbled to a halt when the corners of Jen's mouth twitched and the girl then burst into laughter. "Oh, Tracey, the look on your face! Dear Baron, I needed that!" Not bothering to hide her snickering in the slightest, Jen resumed pouring out the blood. "No, no, it's just pig's blood. I bought it at a Muggle butcher's, told him I was making a bunch of blood sausage for a party when he asked why I needed so much.  _Human blood_. Do I want to know why you thought I'd be going around carving people up and draining their blood?"

"…Sorry," she muttered, feeling extremely ashamed of herself despite Jen laughing it off. What kind of friend  _was_  she for her to so quickly suspect her best friend of being a cold-hearted murderess? "It's just… I've heard horror stories about what dark rituals involve, and when you said  _'blood'_ … I should have known you would never kill someone—"

"Actually, that  _is_  something I have done before," came the light reply. Tossing the empty flask of blood to the ground and conjuring water from the air to spray into the middle triangle, Jen spoke in Tracey's shocked silence, "I know that probably wasn't something you were meaning to ask, but I'm not going to stand here and lie to you that I haven't killed a man before. And to answer the question I'm sure is now running through your mind," she continued when Tracey still had said nothing in response, "no, I don't feel bad about it. I didn't back then, and I still don't to this day."

"Why not?" she whispered.

Jen looked at her, gaze weighty as if she were peering into Tracey's mind and judging anew what she saw. "Because I can't feel anything but hate for the men who raped me."

A snap of her fingers caused the innermost triangle to instantly fill with fire, and the Ravenclaw commanded, "Stay absolutely still. Midnight is upon us, and as soon as the ritual begins, it will be  _very_  easy for you to disrupt it by accident."

"How will I know when it…" Her voice trailed off as the thin trench full of water began to glow with a bright blue light, and a moment later the blood started to burn with dark red flames. The normal fire, on the other hand, died down to the point that it was merely a dull orange glow on the ground, and then the embers floated up from the triangle and began to swirl around her. A look at Vesta showed a similar shower of sparks floating above the calico kitten, and then, as if carried off by a warm breeze, the motes of orange light drifted away from her toward her pet. More sparks took their place from the point of the triangle where the staff was planted in the ground, but her attention was invested in watching the embers that had left her hover scant centimeters away from Vesta, alternately blending in with her orange and white fur or standing out starkly from her black. The particles lost their luster and continued along their path around the triangle; when they reached the twisted staff, they followed the wood back to the ground and sank out of sight.

For perhaps two minutes in total the girl watched in silence as the sparks flowed around them, and then the last mote found its way back to the earth. "We're finished," Jen announced in a soft voice, hesitating for a moment before erasing the three triangles and vanishing the staff. "The sleeping spell I put Vesta under should last until dawn."

"I… I don't feel any different," Tracey pointed out. Her voice, too, was quiet; an air of solemnity, almost reverence, had fallen over them, and neither witch was willing to speak too loudly lest she break it. "Shouldn't I be able to… I don't know. Feel where she is or that she's asleep or something?"

Jen shook her head and summoned Tracey's cloak and boots to their owner. "No. The changes I wrought were all on Vesta. She has the traits you would expect from a familiar bond, but on your side? That will take time to develop. The effects having a familiar have on humans are too subtle for a ritual like this to be able to replicate, and if my own experience with Loki is normal…" With a shrug, she admitted, "It's entirely possible that given enough time together, you will find that you're developing a second, stronger familiar bond with her, something honest rather than the artifice we made tonight. I just don't know for sure."

Taking a deep breath, the Ravenclaw said at a normal volume, "Go ahead and get your shoes on so I can take you back to Hogwarts. No reason for us to stand around freezing out here."

* * *

 _One would think that declaring the country in the midst of a crisis would mean we had_ _less_ _bureaucratic nonsense to deal with rather than_ _more_ , Albus grumbled to himself as he sorted through the various sheets of parchment piled on his desk.  _But no, it seems that_ _any_ _change is a good excuse to slaughter more sheep for their skins_.

"Headmaster," a small portrait on his desk said, the subject of the painting poking his head out from behind the left side of the frame, "the toad woman's coming up."

"Thank you, Benedict," he answered. The man nodded happily and pulled away to return to one of the three other frames hanging out of sight in the stairwell that led up to his office. Many an individual, be they student, staff, or visitor, had been surprised and off-balanced by him always knowing who it was coming up to speak with him; even those who had worked with him for years like Minerva and Filius could still be caught off guard, especially when he also had the door charmed so it could, with but a single command, open on its own when someone stepped on the landing.

It was a little devious, he knew, to weight the deck so greatly in his favor, but as he had been forced to learn after being named for the position of Chief Warlock in 1962, deception and reputation were powerful,  _powerful_  weapons.

A knock on his door caused him to call out, "Come in, Dolores." The former Undersecretary entered, not obviously as impressed as most of his other visitors, but whether she was truly that unmoved or simply hiding it better was unclear. "Please, take a seat. I would have thought that, since classes won't resume for another week, you would have taken the opportunity to enjoy the rest of the winter holidays elsewhere. What brings you to my office?"

 _Probably it has to do with Cornelius being removed as Minister_ , he realized with no little happiness.  _He was the one who placed her here, so with his role being changed to an ambassadorial one, she is likely following him and so can no longer continue with this ridiculous_ 'Curriculum Inspector' _farce_.

The sharp smile the fat witch gave him popped his balloon of joy. "Official business, I'm afraid, Headmaster. Over the weekend, I was called in by Minister Bones to fill her in regarding what I have found in my capacity as Hogwarts's Curriculum Inspector. She was… not amused."

"I am very sorry Amelia is unhappy with you, my dear; perhaps if I Floo—"

"Oh, you misunderstand, Headmaster. She was not displeased with  _my_  actions." Pulling a roll of parchment and a quill out of her handbag, she continued, "I have some questions for you that the Minister would dearly like some answers to. If I may?"

He frowned in obvious disappointment, not that the woman seemed to notice or care. "I don't suppose I really have a choice in the matter, do I?"

"It would not be in your best interest to refuse, no." Glancing over the notes scribbled onto the parchment, she asked, "I'll start with something simple: in 1990, there was an… inter-house  _dispute_  that escalated to the point of all but  _open warfare_  between the students."

"I wouldn't go that far," he argued, settling back in his chair. "There were some nasty pranks toward the end, true, but there was enough ill will that that was not such a surprise. That's all they were, though: simple schoolboy pranks. I have been in this position for a long time, Dolores"—he gave her a mild glare, letting her see just a fraction of his indignation at the insults she and Cornelius had been intent on delivering; he had taught the both of them, yet they insisted they knew how to run Hogwarts better than  _he_  did?—"and in all my years here, I have noticed a very simple trend: trying to force a few hundred adolescents to behave all the time is a fool's errand. Better they get the mischief out of their systems before it has a chance to interrupt their learning."

Umbridge's voice was saccharinely sweet as she prompted, " _'Simple schoolboy pranks'_  that ended with twenty-five students getting into a magical and physical  _brawl_  and having to go to the infirmary to be patched up? Or a prank that wound up with young Miss Simmons being transferred to St. Mungo's after she nearly  _died_? I had a very enlightening conversation with Madam Pomfrey," she elaborated at his sudden frown.

"She said nothing of this conversation to me."

"It was nothing she needed to say to you, was it? Unless you take care to monitor every action of every one of your staff members." The fake smile turned malicious. "I have to wonder, however; would you be nearly so nonchalant if it had been a third-year  _Gryffindor_  who had been the first victim instead of a Slytherin?"

Albus sat up straighter, a growl in his voice as he denied, " _Professor_  Umbridge, I have never and would never treat any student differently just because of what house he or she had been Sorted into. The fact that you can sit there and make these kinds of accusations even after seeing that with your own eyes during  _your_  years here makes me suspicious of just how honest your reports to Cornelius and Amelia have been."

"Yes, I saw your actions with my own eyes; we  _all_  did,  _Doubtful Dumbledore_ ," she snarled back, face flushed with suppressed fury. "Everyone knew your opinions, that the  _'gallant Gryffindors'_  could do no wrong, that it was a house of knights instead of  _bullies_." With a great effort, Dolores reined her temper in. "But I am here to speak to you of recent history; perhaps you will remember it better. Like the reason you stuck a  _cerberus_  on the third floor despite it being a  _class-5 monster_."

 _I suppose it was only a matter of time before she found about Fluffy_ , he thought with a silent sigh. He had told Rubeus that he needed an appropriately fearsome-looking guardian to block the route to the Philosopher's Stone, true, but he was  _sure_  he had stressed that it needed to be safe around children. Unfortunately, the half-giant's  _'puppy dog eyes'_  had been both pitiful and off-putting enough to make him cave to the simple man's demands.

And in the dog's defense, it had done a magnificent job delaying Tom and Quirinus for most of the year.

Unfortunately, he could already tell that the witch in front of him would show none of that same compassionate spirit. "I was housing the creature for a friend of mine. As for why it was inside the castle rather than on the grounds, the answer is simple. If it was here, I had better control over who could come in contact with it."

"And a simple  _Colloportus_  is  _'better control'_? Especially after you announced to every student in the school where they could find it?" she asked with an arched eyebrow. "Instead of, perhaps, keeping it  _anywhere else_?"

"I told them that going up to the third floor and poking around would be dangerous. In fact, I believe the exact words I used were  _'a very painful death'_. I cannot be held responsible for other people's foolishness if they went looking despite my warning."

Which was, to be honest, the  _exact_  same excuse he had used when James, Lily, Arthur, and Molly confronted him on the subject after their children's first year. With his information regarding Tom's increasing activities in Albania, he knew he needed to start honing Danny's skills immediately and preparing the boy for the preordained final battle. The Horcrux that he had begun suspecting was in the boy's scar had posed a hurdle, admittedly, but thanks to the strange events of eleven days earlier that had erased the last of the dark magic lingering on the mark, that was one problem that he could finally stop looking for an answer to.

"And why is it that some of the students told me they had found a trapdoor in the room that lead to a pit of Devil's Snare? That is a strange place to keep your plants. Was there something wrong with the greenhouses?"

His heart raced for a moment at Dolores's words; he had not realized that any students other than Danny and his friends had managed to disable the cerberus. Thankfully for him, however, there was an exceptionally convenient answer to a question like that, especially as she had not mentioned any of the other obstacles. "Have you ever seen the amount of waste a cerberus can produce in a day?" he asked, his tone extraordinarily dry. "Using Devil's Snare to dispose of it merely seemed like a sensible solution to a very smelly problem."

Dolores at least appeared to accept that response, the pursing of her lips indicative of her displeasure at being outmaneuvered, but she quickly rallied. "Interesting. Did you find such a  _'sensible solution'_  to the question of how Danny Potter was able to deceive the second Goblet of Fire and cross your Age Line last year?"

 _Does she truly believe Danny did that, or is there a trap to this question?_  Ludo and Bartemius were both there when the boy had denied having any involvement in his selection, and then they had promised to… Ah. "The results our investigation turned up proved that the spell used on the Goblet was far too high of a level to have been cast by a fourth-year student, bearing out Danny's profession of innocence. Unfortunately, all the other trails we went down bore no fruit. We, sad as I am to admit it, still have no idea who manipulated the Tournament or why they did so, although thanks to Voldemort's recent reappearance, we now at least have a possible motive."

"And did you involve  _professionals_  in your investigation?"

"As a matter of fact, we did," he replied, ignoring the dismissive tone of Dolores's question. "Alastor Moody, a former Auror and one of the most decorated individuals to ever work in the DMLE."

Strangely, she smirked at that. "I see. And did you also call him in in 1989, when you had a rash of disappearances? As I recall, there was a grand total of fourteen students who went missing over the course of the year, reappearing days or weeks later with their magic and vitality drained? Some of them never totally recovered, and one…" She flipped through her notes. "Yes, a Muggleborn named Paige McAbee, was left a  _squib_  and had to be Obliviated, along with her family. Surely you would not have risked the future of our country by not getting the DMLE to search the castle, would you?"

That accusation stung, but to his dismay, he could not argue against it. He had had the staff keeping an eye out, but it was not until the final disappearance in May that they had managed to discover the cause. The implication that he cared less for the students than she did, especially considering that her views on blood purity were well known, was even more galling. "We were fully capable of protecting the students on our own, as should be evidenced by the fact that we were able to find and disable the artefact in question – a portrait that had been enchanted to drain wizards' cores in a futile attempt to bring the subject back to life – perfectly fine without outside assistance."

"Outside assistance that very likely could have resolved the situation before so many students were injured and traumatized," came her swift retort. "And the same can be said of the petrifications in 1992.  _Did_ you ever find the cause of the incidents? Unlike the painting, none of the seventh-years, nor any other student, was able to explain to me just what the so-called monster was that stalked the halls that year."

"That was another unfortunate set of events, but again, it came to a satisfactory end. As for the students, it was felt by all the staff that it was better not to burden them with the full truth of the matter." Also true was that he had not wanted to admit that it had taken a pair of twelve-year-olds to solve a fifty-year mystery, but Albus contented himself with the fact that there had never been any reason to assume Myrtle had stumbled upon the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets rather than be a victim of circumstance like all the others. Not to mention, even if he had investigated the lavatory and found the entrance to the Chamber, there was little he as a non-Parselmouth could have really done to stop the basilisk hidden within.

Dolores leaned forwards in her chair. "Then how about you burden  _me_  with it."

"No." The rotund witch scowled at his flat tone, but before she could interrupt, he continued in an increasingly stern voice, "I have humored your accusations for long enough today, I believe. You are dismissed."

"I am a  _Ministry-appointed inspector_ , and—"

"And  _I_  am Albus Dumbledore, the  _Headmaster_  of Hogwarts. I have run this school for fifty years, I have been an educator for longer than you have been alive, and unlike you, I actually know a thing or two about teaching and administration." Anger finally flaring beyond his ability to contain, he raised his hand to cut off whatever she planned to say before she could get started. "More germane to our conversation, however, is that the political landscape that led to your appointment has drastically changed. Cornelius is no longer the Minister, and despite Amelia keeping him involved in some  _small_  role with governance, he has no power any longer. She is undoubtedly more concerned with the war we have found ourselves in than how I run  _my_  school, and so I very much doubt that she is nearly as upset at my actions as you have made her out to be.

"Finally, we are again at war with  _Voldemort_. Amelia and I both know – as would you, if you actually paid attention to anything but your own prejudices – that I have fought him and forced him to retreat before. Multiple times, which is a claim no one else alive or dead can make with any degree of sincerity." The smile he turned on her then was not kind or grandfatherly or comparable to anything but a shark's sharp grin. "Some, in fact, have even asserted that I am  _'the only man You-Know-Who ever feared'_ , which – while a bit exaggerated, in my opinion – most certainly has its basis in  _fact_. Perhaps  _he_  remembers that I fought my way through Grindelwald's armies and then defeated the man in single combat.

"So, Dolores, let us speak honestly. There is no point in you continuing Cornelius's foolish crusade against me, especially not when he no longer has the power to support you should you push too hard. You have too far to fall while I stand firmly on solid ground. Surely you have not forgotten  _everything_  you learned here at Hogwarts.  _Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus_ , my dear, and I am a very old and powerful dragon, indeed. Do not rouse me lest you be consumed in my wrath."

A wave of his hand had the door swing open with enough force to crash against the opposite wall. His expression rearranging itself into something more familiar, he nodded towards the staircase. "Enjoy the rest of the holidays, Dolores. I hope when you return for the winter term that you will do so with a more conciliatory attitude."

* * *

**Okay** **, Albus. If you wanted to be portrayed as a badass, you should have told me** _**beforehand** _ **. If anyone is a Dumbledore apologist or can think like one and has ideas for better explanations he can give in his defense, please send me a PM. I'm more than happy to alter the third scene, though the** _**'I am a dragon'** _ **speech is going to stay.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	30. A Whole New Dance

**A shorter chapter than normal, I know, but unfortunately I am constrained by the free time I have available. On the other hand, I** _**did** _ **give you guys a little present at the end to make up for it…**

**Also, the poll on my profile is open for just one more week, and as anyone who's taken a glance at it recently knows,** _**Deal with a Devil** _ **and** _**Team Hellhound** _ **are still duking it out. If you haven't yet voted for which story you want, you really need to do so. I'm not a mind-reader, people.**

**Disclaimer:**  Was Draco the only Junior Death Eater who was properly used as Voldemort's hands in Hogwarts, despite many of the Slytherins in Harry's year supposedly being the children of his followers? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 30  
** **A Whole New Dance**

Jen's lips pursed as she looked down at the choices available to her. Her fingers played along the length of the wooden stick she held, just for a moment, and then she leveled it at her target. Supporting the far end with her left hand, her right moved in and out… in and out… A quick thrust, and the tip shot forwards with a sharp crack.

The white cue ball smashed into the 2-ball and ricocheted off to smack a few others; the ball she had been trying to put in the corner pocket, on the other hand, only bounced against the rail next to the hole and drifted away.

Tonks groaned loudly at her missed shot while Sirius chuckled and Ted merely shook his head and approached the table. "You're still my favorite cousin," the metamorph said in a faux-consoling voice, "but seriously, you can't shoot pool worth shite."

"Well,  _excuse me_  for not having yet mastered a game I first played this month," she snarked back, tossing Dora the cue.

"Don't mind her." She turned her head to look back at Ted as he sank the 14 and 9 in rapid succession. "She has a  _bit_  of an edge on you, after all. I've been taking her with me to the pub since she was old enough not to change her looks accidentally, so she probably knew how to play pool before she could write her own name."

Ignoring Dora's spluttering at that – though considering the name in question, she could easily believe the claim – Jen rolled her eyes and glanced at the two others in the room with them. Andromeda had snuggled down into a puffy armchair and surrounded herself with several skeins of yarn as she knitted another jumper; presumably it was for one of the children who spent most of their time living in the Margery Dewitt Wing of St. Mungo's Hospital, a wing for patients who need more long-term care, where Andromeda often volunteered. Compared to her sister, Cissy was positively indolent; after a busy day of researching precedents the pro-war Houses of the Wizengamot could use to push forward a more aggressive agenda, the piebald woman had lain down on a sofa and was watching the older wizards and younger witches' game with half-open eyes. That looked to be a loosing battle, however, and the soft clack-clacking they made was slowly but surely drawing her eyelids shut.

Jen strongly doubted that Cissy would be this relaxed anywhere else, but the older witch obviously felt safe here. The sitting room was completely at odds with every other room in the townhouse: a thick red carpet covered the floor, all but refusing to be walked on by anything other than stockinged feet, and the dark emerald paint on the walls gave the illusion that the room was slowly shrinking to wrap them all in its embrace. There were no uncomfortable antiques or showpieces, either; every piece of furniture, from the armchairs and sofas to the small fireplace that provided them with a merry warmth, was meant to promote relaxation and soothe aggravations.

Many people who thought the Blacks stiff and obsessed with appearance would be shocked at the sheer comfort of the sitting room, not that they would ever have the opportunity. This room was for the family, and the family only. Even under Sirius's comparatively lax enforcement of protocol and traditions, this was where they could all be the most themselves.

After a second glance at Cissy while she felt her cousin knock another ball in, she said idly, "Hey, Dora? I meant to ask you this earlier, but how are things going now that Madam Bones has taken the Minister's seat?"

"Well, a lot of things are exactly the same. A week isn't really very long to reorganize the whole government, you know." Dora squinted and took another shot; the cue ball glanced off the side of her target, but the red ball only rolled a short distance. "Most of the shake-up has been in the DMLE itself. She named Scrimgeour the new head of the department, and he picked Gawain Robards to take his place as Chief Auror."

Sirius quirked one eyebrow at Dora at that point. "You sound like you aren't too happy about that. I hope you weren't expecting to get the spot."

"Screw you," the metamorph snapped, hitting the table with her hip to throw off the Animagus's shot, much to his distress. "I knew I wasn't going to get it; only Senior Aurors are eligible, and I'm the newest member of the Corps. There's no way I would ever even be in the running.

"But no, I'm not happy about it. Robards is one of the most hidebound people in the department. If we do something differently than how it was done back in the '50s when he joined up, we're doing it wrong, regardless of whether or not the new way is more effective. I never had to work alongside him, thank Merlin, but the few conversations I've had with him in the office are enough to let me know I'm not going to like working under him."

Jen took the pool cue from her and looked for the best available shot. "Is he married? Maybe he just needs a good shag to get him to relax," she suggested in a half-joking voice.

"Is sex all you think about?"

"I'm a teenager; of course it is," she answered lightly, rolling her eyes at Dora's teasing barb and lowering the stick to the table. "But I'm serious, that could be the simplest solution to your problem. There's a whore on Knockturn, Abigail, who has always had a thing for Aurors and Hitwizards – likely because she's a closet masochist – but we could probably sic her on him. Get her prettied up a little, arrange for her to be in 'danger' somewhere he goes often, he saves her, and she gives her hero a little  _'thank you'_  present. I might even be able to convince her to do it for free, or at least a significant discount, if I approached her right."

Her shot went wide, and she looked up to find Dora, Sirius, Ted, and Andi all staring at her with shocked expressions. "Okay, you really should not be surprised to learn that I have connections in the flesh trade. I may not have ever worked the magical side of things – you don't need child prostitutes when you can give adults Polyjuice Potion instead – but that's not to say  _running_  it wasn't one of my future career options."

"That… is something I could happily have gone my whole life without knowing," Sirius commented with a full-body shudder before he handed his cue to Ted. "It goes for everything you said in the last thirty seconds, in fact. But I think what we were all surprised most about was how quickly you came up with a scheme like that."

An sharp smirk appeared on her lips. "You'd be surprised how many of my clients loved role-play. There's actually a rule I taught all the kids when I became the manager based on that: if you have to put on a costume, make sure you charge extra." She flicked her eyes at Cissy but ultimately decided not to give any specific examples.

Though their rich lady–pitiful serving girl performances were quite amusing in hindsight.

"Suddenly I'm a great deal more nervous about you heading back to Hogwarts tomorrow," Ted said in a falsely bright tone. "Who knows how many of those kids you've corrupted already? And to think; you're supposed to be a role model to them, too."

"I wouldn't worry about their innocence," she replied with a snort. "I'd get a lot of attention that I don't want if I started breaking out every seduction trick I know on the unsuspecting populace. And the school isn't the right place to try to recruit prostitutes, anyway. Except for the Muggleborns and the occasional scholarship student, everyone's too well-connected for spiriting them away and making the work the streets to be a good idea.

"Besides," she was quick to add when the rest of the family gave her another disturbed look, "it isn't like I have any reason to get back into the business. The cost of being found out is too high compared to the benefits it would provide."

Ted sank the black 8-ball into a corner pocket, and with the game over, they all hastily dropped the subject and reset the table.

* * *

Dropping into the seat on the other side of the compartment from Jen, Susan shot her a tired look. "Your aunt being the Minister not going quite how you thought it would?" the dark witch asked in a knowing tone.

"It's funny," Susan replied, "but when I was younger, I always told Auntie that she would be a much better Minister than that oaf Fudge. Unfortunately, I didn't realize just how inconvenient it would become. Her not getting home until well after dinner and leaving again at dawn is bad enough, but then she told me I had to go around with at least one Auror acting as my bodyguard the entire time. It's almost enough to drive me mad!"

Padma shared a sly smile with the redhead. "Susan, does that really come as any great surprise? You're family to the  _Minister of Magic_  during a time of  _war_. If You-Know-Who managed to kidnap you, you'd make an excellent hostage."

"Not to mention that you're now the acting Head of House Bones," Jen added. "Why keep you as a hostage when he can instead put you under the Imperius and force you to use your political power to advance his goals? I can't exactly blame her for making sure you stay safe."

"It isn't that I don't know why she's going to all this trouble," came Susan's hot retort. "But just because it's necessary doesn't mean that it isn't irritating. I also can't go to Hogsmeade for the next few months, though she did promise that once she has a better idea of how the war will go, she might change her mind about that part."

The door slid open before anyone could reply to that, and Jen smiled slightly when Luna popped her head in and immediately looked around the compartment for her, the younger witch's eyes shining as they landed on the black and blue scarf wrapped around her neck. Quickly stowing her trunk in the overhead rack, the blonde practically dived into the seat next to her and pressed her bony ribs into Jen's side. With a laugh, the heiress wrapped her arm around Luna and pulled her close.

"Well, don't you two look cozy," Morag commented with a wide grin. "Is there something we should know about, perhaps?"

Jen glanced down at the girl in her arms. Luna's face was completely placid, but her silvery eyes were clouded with indecision. Weighing the choices before them, Jen finally answered, "That's honestly something we're still trying to figure out ourselves. When we know, you'll know."

"Fair enough," Padma replied.

A second time the door opened, but it was not Justin or Kenneth who looked inside. Instead, Jen was surprised to see none other than Theodore Nott standing outside and peering down at them, his customary sneer present but oddly small than normal. His brown eyes met her purple, and he said, "Black."

"Nott, what a surprise. What has led you to barge in here? I hope for your sake that it's not to start  _more_ trouble."

His expression grew even more disgruntled at her comment. No doubt he was remembering the  _last_ time he and she had interacted, which had involved her deducting twenty points from him when she caught him hurling abuse at some of  _her_  first-year Ravenclaws back in November. That episode, along with the second-years' unflagging support of her, had finally convinced even the most suspicious of the new Ravens to trust her.

However, that only made his appearance even more unexpected.

Forcing his visage into something more neutral, Nott announced, "I need to speak with you. Away from your hangers-on," he added when she waved for him to continue.

 _Now, Nott, why would I_ _ **ever**_ _go wandering off alone with you?_  "I fail to see any reason why what you have to say to me cannot be said in front of my friends."

"It pertains to House business, Scion Black."

Jen's eyebrows shot to her hairline at that. That made things different, and considerably more interesting, too. She was well aware that other than the Notts owning a few businesses that were built on Black land, the two Houses had no real financial connections, nor did they have an alliance in the political sphere. Between those facts and her hearing Voldemort greet two wizards named Thaddeus and Timothy Nott – whom she had discovered were his grandfather and father, respectively – at his rebirth, there was normally no way she would ever have a private discussion with him.

Publicly calling this  _'House business'_ , however, put a very different spin on it. When the heirs or Heads of different Houses met under those terms, family honor demanded that it be peaceful. By making that claim in front of witnesses, he had all but ensured that his duplicity would be revealed if he used this as a chance to attack her, and the fall in prestige the Notts would suffer…

"Then by all means, Scion Nott, lead on." She stood and slipped out of the compartment, closing the door behind her. "What do you wish to talk about?"

Rather than answer, he started walking to the end of the train carriage, and she followed close behind. Nott waved his wand, locking the door that led to the next car, and threw up a rather elaborate privacy charm. "I come bearing a message from the Dark Lord."

That was not what she had been expecting. Licking her lips, Jen said, "I see. Well, you'll have to forgive me for my lack of enthusiasm. The last time someone said they had a message from your master for me—"

"Was Malfoy threatening you," he interrupted. "Yes, I am aware, and that is the only reason I'm even talking to you. The Dark Lord was greatly displeased by his actions. He gave no orders for you to be harmed, nor did he command Malfoy to serve as his voice. That was Malfoy trying – and failing – to take the initiative."

"Someone really should have told him that was a bad idea," she murmured with a faint smirk. Nott did not smile back. "I thank you for passing this message along, but I have to wonder…  _Why_  would the Dark Lord want me to know that I do not need to fear him striking me down?"

She hoped that admitting her ignorance would show enough 'weakness' that Nott would let something slip as he lorded over her, but unfortunately he had been better taught than Malfoy had and did not take the bait. "I will not explain the thoughts of the Dark Lord to a filthy blood traitor like you. How you can defile yourself by affiliating with Mudbloods and Halfbloods when your mother was willing to suffer fourteen years in Azkaban for her dedication to the Cause, I will never understand."

"Yes, my mother was in prison while  _your_  family slunk back into polite society and pretended that they hadn't loved ever minute of the war," she shot back. That he was really going to chide her for her lack of  _'dedication'_ was amusingly ironic considering what Voldemort had told his elders, but there was something off about all this. For all his sneering and derision of those he saw as below him, his attitude was… almost disengaged. "You don't know why you were told to speak to me, either, do you?"

Instead of immediately replying, Nott tore down the palings he had cast and slipped his wand back in his robe pocket. "I know the Dark Lord is not pleased. If you want your House to survive this war, you had best start thinking hard about where your loyalties would best be rewarded. The Light, the Muggle-lovers and blood traitors?" He scoffed. "They will never see you as anything other than your mother's daughter. Do you think your House will keep its place in society if, by some strange chance, they win? House Black will be stripped of its power and prestige. And when  _we_  win, if you support the Light… you will be condemned alongside them."

Jen raised one brow, but Nott was clearly done; he turned his back on her and walked away. "Think about it, Black! You're a Ravenclaw; don't be a fool!" She stood still for several minutes, weighing his words and only when the Hogwarts Express rocked back and forth as it began its trek back to Scotland did she move to return to her compartment. Her friends noticed her darkened mood, but none of them pried into what Nott had wanted to talk about, merely resuming their conversation about a new all-witch band that had entered the music scene and Luna cuddling into her again. She was glad for their silence and the chance to continue her pondering.

Because despite the Baron's command that she kill Voldemort within the next year and a half, there might be a point in Nott's logic.

* * *

Luna glanced around the dorm room. It was still rather strange, actually; for the first two years, she had been incredibly reluctant to leave any of her things in her dorm for fear of them being taken, and the previous year she had stayed at the school instead of worrying about it. But now, she had been gone for three solid weeks while taking only a few personal effects, and yet all her belongings were right where she left them.

It was astonishing what no longer being the outcast in Ravenclaw did for her!

Shaking away her idle reflections, she quickly stepped out of the thick dress that had kept her warm on the trip back up to the castle. Tomorrow classes would resume, and she knew she would need a good night's sleep with Potions being the first class. Her nightgown slipped down her body, and she crawled under the covers of her enlarged bed.  _I really need to thank Jen again for transfiguring this for me_ …

As if summoned by her thoughts, the door opened to allow the black-haired witch into the room. "I love that girl, but I might just strangle her before the year's out," Jen said with a shake of her head.

"Oh? Should I be getting jealous?" she teased. Jen only used that particular tone of fond exasperation when she talked about the younger students she had taken under her wing. "I mean, if you're already in love with another girl…"

The older witch laughed a little. "It was Maisie Jackson's fault; she wanted me to explain a charm she was having trouble with, and that nearly developed into a full-blown tutoring session. But no, you don't have to worry." Jen turned her gaze onto the blonde, eyes smoldering with purple fire. "I prefer my partners to be a little more… developed than what she can offer at the moment."

Luna felt a blush staining her cheeks, and the heat continued spreading down her torso. "Well… um…"

Jen chuckled again, and Luna cursed herself in her mind. Why was Jen so good at making her tongue-tied with just a few words?! It was absolutely infuriating! The Black heiress walked over to her own bed and began peeling off her clothes, taking much longer than Luna had needed; she could not decide whether she should look away and give her roommate some privacy or keep watching the show. This was not the first time Jen had changed in front of her like this, but it was the first time she had done so since Luna had revealed her crush. Was this just more teasing? An invitation? Something else entirely?

She desperately wanted to know the answer.

Tonight, however, Jen did something different. Instead of slipping into bed, the older girl turned towards her, and the blonde swallowed reflexively at the milky skin now put fully on display. This was just for her.

"Do you like what you see?" Jen taunted, raising one hand to the hollow of her throat just below her black choker. Those slim fingers then began sliding down, down,  _down_. Along her sternum. Between perky breasts. Following the midline of her belly past her navel. Across her waist and over shaved skin towards—

Luna closed her eyes and shuddered, willing her body not to fly apart as it wanted to do.

A warm breath hit her face, and her eyes shot open to stare into the amused amethysts waiting not a foot away. When had Jen gotten so close?!

"You haven't answered my question yet, you know." Pink lips, so plump and soft, quivered as they stretched into a wicked smile. "A girl does like to know she's  _appreciated_." Jen's face came even closer, and Luna pulled back before her rapidly shrinking willpower could vanish completely. That only served to encourage the black-haired witch, however; the edge of her bed sank as Jen put her weight on it, and then a long, smooth leg slipped over her covered thighs to settle on the opposite side.

Jen positioned her hands next to Luna's shoulders, all but demanding that the blonde focus her attention on the nicely sized breasts dangling in front of her face. Luna desperately tried to wet her lips, though her mouth felt dry like cotton. The heiress cocked her head curiously, that damnable smile never so much as twitching. "My sweet,  _innocent_  little moonchild," Jen purred as she fully straddled the girl, and Luna grew even hotter when she felt the flesh at the juncture of Jen's legs pressing against her through the bedspread. The evil witch dragged her lower body against the fabric to touch the tip of her nose ever so gently against the blonde's, then she slipped her head out of Luna's line of sight. Luscious lips left scorching,  _aching_  lines down her jaw and across her neck. "You don't have to explain a thing. I can tell what you want… what you need… And I can give it to you…"

A strong, cool hand wrapped around her own and lifted it toward Jen's chest, and suddenly Luna felt more flesh, burning hot as her own, fill her palm. She twitched and shifted, her thighs rubbing together and her mind caught in a frantic loop, which only pleased her crush more. "All you have to do… All you have to  _say_ … is yes…"

 _Yes, yes, sweet Merlin yes!_ , screamed a voice in the back of her head.

"N-No."

Jen pulled back a touch, just enough to look down at her, and the renewed distance gave Luna enough presence of mind to snatch her hand away from temptation and get her voice working again. "I-I want it, I do, but… I can't… I don't…" She took a deep breath. "I don't know if… I'm ready to…"

Lips pursed and head tilted, Jen stared at her for just a few seconds, almost as if she didn't understand what the younger girl could possibly mean. The black-haired girl sighed then and let her head drop onto Luna's chest. Pale flesh shivered, and while a part of Luna's mind was screaming at her to take her words back before the opportunity was lost forever, another part just wanted to gather the other witch into a tight hug.

After another moment, Jen straightened and rolled off of her to sit on the edge of the bed facing away from her. "Okay," she whispered, her voice so soft that even in the silence of the room Luna had trouble making it out. "Okay. I get it."

"Jen," the blonde said, thinking quickly about how she could possibly explain what she meant. "It isn't… It isn't you that's the problem. I just…  _I_  don't even know what I want."

The heiress huffed out a weak laugh. "It's fine, Luna. I suppose… I suppose I'm just not used to being rejected." She stood and walked over to her own bed, her steps now without the sashay Luna was so used to seeing, while the adolickies that normally hid in her silhouette chittered in frustration.

Luna bit her lip while Jen slipped under the covers. "I'm not rejecting you, not really. I just don't want us to go this fast. Do you understand?"

"I told you it's fine."  _But if it was_ 'fine' _, why won't you even look at me?_ , the blonde cried out in her mind. "We'll talk more tomorrow. 'Night."

"Jen, wait." The elder witch ignored her, and though the other girl's bed shook in its frame, no squeaks or any other sound came from the rocking wood. Luna sighed and rolled over as well, all the ardor that had previously consumed her replaced with confusion and unhappiness.

She flicked her wand, and the room's lights went out.

* * *

**The first scene was actually the result of a review by Iryelb a couple of chapters ago; he or she pointed out that I hadn't really shown much of the Blacks being a** _**family** _ **except when some crisis or another popped its ugly head up. So, all I can say is: there you go!**

**Silently Watches out.**


	31. Strange Likenesses

**Guardian of Azarath:**  Ironically enough, Luna's "rejection" actually made Jen  _more_  interested. Remember that most of her previous relations have been cut-and-dry "we meet, we screw, you pay me, and we're done". Here, however, she has a girl who is clearly attracted to her (and to whom she is attracted, too) but didn't hop into bed at the first opportunity. This is a strange new experience for Jen, and she's found herself quite curious at where this is going to go.

As for lemons, I'm not  _'nervous'_  about writing them; I already know I can't do them well, and since the actual sexual content doesn't contribute anything to the plot, I'm going to do like I did in  _Faery Heroes_  and leave no doubt in your mind what's going on when the screen fades to black.

 **Iryelb:**  I do what I can to please! You didn't miss a scene; I intentionally did not reveal just what Jen did that earned her a chewing out by Sirius and Cissy. The answer to that will come up in a couple of chapters.

 **Jiggly Joe:**  Personally, I don't mind if you or anyone else wrote a "Characters Read" story about this series – or a spin-off of any of my stuff, for that matter – so long as appropriate credit is given, which I expect would be hard to avoid in a story of that nature, and the author lets me know so I can check it out. The only potential problem I foresee is that the admins cracked down on those kinds of stories a couple of years back, and I don't know if their stance has changed since then.

**It's been a month, and the poll is now closed.** _**Deal with a Devil** _ **finished at first place, but its lead over** _**Team Hellhound** _ **was so, so slim that I just can't call it that simply. Instead, what I'm going to do is this: I'll start work on** _**Deal** _ **as soon as I finish _What Happens in Vegas_ , which should be in three more chapters, and I'll publish it every other week for the next six months to a year. When I get to a good stopping point, probably at the end of one of Harry's school years, I'll switch over to ** _**Team Hellhound** _ **for about the same length of time, then bounce back to Harry and Lash's story.**

**Disclaimer:**  Were wands said to change owners if their wielders were hit with Disarming Charms, even though that was portrayed throughout the series as the most basic of combat spells and one appropriate for even first- and second-year students to learn? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 31  
** **Strange Likenesses**

"Filius, could I have a word?"

The quarter-goblin stopped in his tracks, a curious frown warring with the sigh of irritation that threatened to spill forth. Unlike Minerva, he had never been all that fond of James Potter; after enduring the many  _'pranks'_  played on him when he was a student because of his non-human heritage, he tended to take a bit of a dim view on those who got their jollies humiliating their fellow students, even if they were lauded afterwards or protested that their actions were 'justified'. At least the Weasley twins had figured out there was a line one did not cross following the disaster that was their second year!

Still, James  _was_  a professor now, and considering the younger wizard was hailing him immediately after the Returning Feast, perhaps there was even a legitimate reason why.

"I suppose," he answered, turning to face the tall man. "It depends on exactly what it's about."

James let out an unhappy snort. "I'm having a small issue with a few of my students, and I was hoping you could give me some advice." At Filius's nod, he continued, "The whole reason I run the practical portion of my class in the evenings is because it would be too difficult to give everyone the one-on-one attention they need when they're learning the spells they'll have to know for the Defense Against the Dark Arts OWL in the short period I have available in class. I know you and Minerva can teach your classes just fine without that," he hastily added, "but it's different with hexes and jinxes."

_I'm pretty sure I know where this is going._

"Unfortunately, there are a couple of people who, instead of attending these sessions, seem perfectly content with skipping them altogether. I'm getting pretty worried about how they will do on their exam if they keep ignoring all the information they have to learn, especially with how close we are to the testing dates. As this is part of the class, surely I have the right to give them detentions for missing my sessions, right?"

"Not in the slightest. We may be teachers, but that only means we lead our students to the waters of knowledge. We can't make them drink," the tiny head of Ravenclaw replied in a sagacious tone. "If they prefer to learn the material on their own or even skive off entirely, that is their decision. So long as they attend the class itself when scheduled and turn in their written homework on time, they have fulfilled the minimum required of them."

James frowned heavily at that. "That's not all, though. I have reason to believe that someone, maybe even another member of the faculty, is undermining me and tutoring at least one of these students. If it is a professor, how should I make sure they know their actions are unwelcome?"

Filius shrugged. "Whether you think those actions  _'unwelcome'_  or not is, quite frankly, irrelevant. Any professor may use their time outside of class to tutor any student on any subject they wish, regardless of the opinions of whomever was originally hired to teach the course." The younger wizard opened his mouth to respond, but he continued on, "James, a master of subtlety you are not. If you intend to demand something of me, stop wasting my time and just come out and  _say it_."

"Fine. I want you to stop getting between me and my daughter." In a somewhat softer voice, he added, "I couldn't figure out why she never showed up to the evening tutoring – I have it on good authority that just like the other Ravenclaws, she is serious about her marks – but it hit me over the holidays just what was going on. This is House Potter business. Quit interfering."

"You weren't listening to me, were you?" Filius asked with a sharp, cold smile. "Any professor, any student, any subject. I'm well within my rights to teach Miss Black how to duel, and since she is a Ravenclaw and I am the head of that house, I have the right – nay, the  _duty_  – to look after her best interests."

"Reconciling with her family is in her best interests!" snarled James.

"That's something we'll have to agree to disagree on, I'm afraid. She clearly wants nothing to do with you, has made that point  _abundantly_  clear to me numerous times, and honestly? I don't blame her for it in the slightest.

"And I believe you have forgotten a tiny little detail," he continued when James opened his mouth. "You may be her father, but as I understand it, her official status as your illegitimate daughter means that she is a member of House Black, not Potter, regardless of who her birth mother is."

The other man's eyes burned with anger, and his voice was quiet and dark. "You know. You know the truth, that we're her real parents, and you're still going to stand in the way of us getting our daughter back?"

"When your daughter is my responsibility and wants nothing to do with the people that gave her up?" He took a step forwards, and the hand resting inside his robe's pocket curled around the handle of his wand. "Absolutely."

He bit off the mocking laugh that welled up inside him when James's own hand clenched. A fight would solve nothing, and in fact would only cause more trouble, but the less civilized part of him wanted nothing more than to thrash this selfish whelp. Jennifer Black had earned his favor when she 'disciplined' the bullies who had been running rampant in his house right under his nose, and between his monthly meetings with her the previous year and her tutoring sessions now, he had gotten the chance to know the intelligent and powerful witch very well. It was too bad that Albus had such a bias against her, or he would be pushing for her to be selected for Head Girl in a couple of years.

Of course, growing so close to one of his students also meant that the troubles in her life consequently became more personal to him, which was a danger when the source of many of her problems was standing right in front of him.

Taking a deep breath to calm his pounding heart, Filius turned his back on James before he did something the both of them would regret. "If that's all you have to complain about, I'd say we're done here. Classes resume tomorrow, and I still have quite a few things to get ready. Ta ta."

With that, he walked off, and though he kept his ears perked for any mutterings of an incantation or the swish of a robe's sleeves as a wand was waved, he had little fear that James would curse him in the back. For all his anger and impulsivity, the man was not stupid, and starting a fight now that the situation was on the cusp of defusing itself would only ignite new problems.

 _Should I warn Miss Black that James is planning something?_ , he wondered for a moment before shaking his head. She was a clever young lady; it would not take long for her to figure it all out for herself when James made his move, and Filius would be more surprised if she had not already made plans for this eventuality. James's desire to bring her back into the Potter fold, her own wishes be damned, was not exactly a secret.

Besides, it was his job as a professor to prepare his students for the world outside of the castle. How would he be teaching her anything useful if he didn't let her be surprised?

* * *

Jen shook her head as Tracey finished her announcement. "Surely you're exaggerating."

"No, I'm dead serious. It looks like someone shoved a hot coal in Potter's face and left it there. It's big and puckered. Whatever happened to him over the hols, it wasn't pretty."

"I suppose I'll get the chance to see it for myself later," she said, though her attention was quickly diverted by the feeling of someone staring,  _glaring_ , at her. Her sonar and gaze swept the room before finally stopping on Granger. What could the Lion's problem with her be  _this_  time?

Shoving the strange antics of the bushy brunette out of her mind, she sat down in the middle of her customary table, Luna and Tracey taking the seats on her left and right, respectively, while Morag plopped down with a couple of her Hufflepuff friends. In front of them all were small squares of soapstone and blunted metal scalpels; their mere presence was enough to make the Scottish witch bounce in excitement. The bell tolled half past noon, and Babbling slowly pushed herself out of the overstuffed armchair behind her desk.

"For the rest of the year, we are going to do things a little differently," wheezed the withered old witch. "You still have to keep up with the hieroglyphs I will be introducing – there are over two thousand symbols in the Egyptian script, though you will only need to know the three hundred most common ones for the OWL – but from now on, a portion of each class will be dedicated to learning how to  _activate_  runes and how their effects can be applied in a practical way. This is something that will be more important, in fact the central focus, of the NEWT years in case anyone was considering continuing on in this class. I will warn you now, however, that I only accept students who have achieved at least an E in your upcoming exams, and the NEWT material is even more challenging. A certain degree of dedication will be required."

That news was like pouring life-giving water over a parched garden, and Jen could see and feel nearly every student perk up. Hard work or not, those who joined this class were already willing to hold their noses against the grindstone.

"Today we will start the period off with this, as I am sure that none of you will be able to focus until you get your excitement out of your systems." Babbling held a stern finger up. " _However_. Even though I will teach you the charm necessary to activate runes, you may not cast it outside of my supervision. If I find out that any of you have done so, I will kick you out of my class faster than you can say  _'hagalaz'_ , and I will not accept you into my NEWT classes even if you got a perfect score on your OWL. Am I understood?"

The class muttered an unhappy assent, and she nodded. "Good. Now, the incantation for the Rune-Charging Spell is  _'Epoto'_ , the motion simply a jab at the rune. Use the probes to carve an algiz rune on the stones in front of you, and then practice the charm."

 _Not a bad way to introduce the topic_ , Jen thought with approval as she pulled her knife and surface closer.  _Without focusing on exactly what you want a rune to do, there's always the chance that it will manifest in some strange way only tangentially related to the concept the symbol embodies. That said, algiz is the primary protection rune in Futhark; there aren't a lot of ways it can activate that are inherently dangerous._  Shrugging to herself, she carved the symbol, the image in her mind's eye of a thin shield wrapped around the stone, and poked it with her blank wand. A faint blue haze shaped like a dome immediately appeared over the rock.

"Very good, Miss Black," Babbling said as she passed by. "Take ten points for Ravenclaw. And ten to you as well, Miss Granger."

Tracey looked over her shoulder at the Lion, and when she turned back to Jen, her eyes were widened slightly in surprise. "Yikes, what did you do to Granger over the hols? She looks like she wants to gouge your eyes out and stomp on them or something."

"Your guess is as good as mine," she whispered in a low enough voice that only Tracey and Luna would hear her. "I haven't seen her since we got on the Express to head back to London, and it isn't like I have anything to gain by going out of my way to cause her problems. Whatever stick she has shoved up her arse wasn't my doing."

Furrowing her eyebrows in confused curiosity, Luna glanced back at Granger, and then she barely withheld a gasp. "Jen, can you make me a promise?" The black-haired witch nodded, and the quirky blonde ordered, "Stay far, far away from her. She's positively covered in Nargles."

"That would mean more if we knew what Nargles were," Tracey said in a dry voice.

"They're like giant hornets, big mandibles and bigger stingers. They showed up on Chang, Edgecombe, and the prefects every time someone planned to bully me."

Tracey did not have a quip to make at that, and the soft admission had sucked any joviality out of them. It also left Jen extremely and inappropriately curious.

 _I wonder how well-warranted Luna's concern is_ , she thought to herself, the voices of the surrounding students fading as her attention focused on the intelligent Lion seated behind her.  _Just what metaphor Nargles represent is unclear, but considering whom else she's seen them on, it's almost certainly cruelty or anger. Then again, she hasn't ever mentioned me having them, and I'm far nastier than any of these little children could ever dream of being, so clearly I'm missing something. Either way, it marks her as an enemy, at least for the moment._

_Now the only question is what I should do about it. The simplest solution, just walking up to her and asking outright what her problem is, might be unexpected enough for the average Gryffindor to slip up, but even if that were enough to unbalance Granger, which I doubt, I can't do that where anyone could see. It would start unpleasant rumors that I'm trying to 'reconcile' with the Potters, which would only goad James into being even more annoying than he has been. Also, anyone politically minded would see me going to her as giving up power, and it only takes a drop of blood in the water to summon up all the sharks._

_No, I'll have to figure out some other way to get her alone, preferably something that doesn't require memory charms afterward_. She smiled darkly to herself.  _Though that only means that slipping through the windows of Gryffindor Tower and kidnapping her for a couple of hours has to stay on the back burner for now, not that it has to be thrown out entirely. Until I can come up with a viable plan, I suppose I'll just have to be on my guard in case she completely loses it. I don't want to end up like Richard when he annoyed me when I was first learning to control dark magic._

A suspicion bubbling up, she hastily sieved mental fingers through Granger's core. No, the Lion was free of the faint chill recent use of that power left on one's magic.

_Good. If she started learning dark magic, she and I would very quickly have a problem. She reminds me too much of a younger me as it is._

Babbling called their attention to the front of the room again, and Jen shoved the problem of what to do with Granger in the back of her mind. She needed a solution, and soon.

* * *

"Wow. Davis wasn't joking about Potter's scar, was she?"

Jen rolled her eyes at Morag's muttered comment. The redheaded Scot did have a point, though; the ugly triangular scar she could make out on Potter's forehead was a far cry from the much more subdued lightning bolt it had once been. Most of the other Ravens had already heard about this during either the lunch break or the elective period just prior to the DADA class they shared with the Gryffindors, and now that those rumors had been confirmed, Jen could almost hear what new ones would be spawned. Probably something along the lines of him doing it for attention or something equally inane; he had still yet to change the widely held belief that he had cheated his way into the Triwizard Tournament.

What she found far more important than his scar was that the enchanted sandbox Potter the elder normally kept in the middle of the classroom was gone, instead replaced by a long stage that depicted a moon waxing and waning as her eyes slid from one end to the other. The chairs around the edges were gone, too, forcing them to stand around the stage for lack of anything else to gravitate toward. As her gaze took in the short stairs on either end, she felt the last few embers of enthusiasm James's mere presence had not been sufficient to smother finally wink out of existence.

She did not like what she all but knew was coming up next.

"Welcome back," the aforementioned wizard said as he entered the room behind them and closed the door. "I hope you all enjoyed the holidays as much or more than I did."

Sixteen pairs of eyes rolled to stare anew at Danny's forehead at that.

"As you can see, the stage we normally use has temporarily been replaced by another. Due in large measure to You-Know-Who proving himself to have returned over the break, I felt it was important to reinforce the practical aspects of what I have been teaching you in our evening meetings. So, once or twice a month we will have another session during our normal class time, just to make sure that everyone is where they need to be. The rules, of course, will be the same: no contact, no intentional injuries, and victory is based on disarming your opponent or making them leave the stage.

"Let's dive right in, shall we?" James fished around in his pockets and pulled out a pair of small white cards. "First, Dean Thomas and Michael Corner. Could you two please come up here?"

 _Yes, this is an excellent way to build unity between the houses_ , she thought sarcastically while Corner and Thomas bowed to each other and got into cookie-cutter dueling stances.  _Have a Ravenclaw and Gryffindor fight each other right from the start. Obviously that will stop everyone from viewing those from different houses as_ 'other' _and considering them to be less important than one's housemates. What the hell are you thinking?_

That bit of disappointing mindlessness out of the way, she payed attention to the duel itself. The two wizards on stage weren't  _bad_ , per se, though they were too busy watching to see if their attacks had landed to truly gain an advantage, not to mention that the spells they chose were pedestrian compared to the esoteric curses she had become used to facing off against. Then again, Flitwick was a former professional fighter, so that was probably too high a bar to hold a bunch of fifteen-year-olds to.

Even if she expected she could have crushed both of them in seconds, and that was  _before_  he chose to give her special attention.

The duel ended with Thomas the victor, and the next couple of matches were equally bland. It really should not have been a surprise – to hear her friends talk, James's supplementary lessons were the first exposure most of the class had ever had to combat – but everyone used the same spells and made more or less the same mistakes. Some of that was almost certainly due to the rules prohibiting more harmful spells, as there was only so much one could do when limited to mere schoolyard jinxes and a couple of pacifistic hexes like the Disarming Charm, but she still would have hoped for a little more originality from the ones who showed more inherent talent.

"Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood."

Jen's eyes narrowed; this was the first time anyone in the younger Potter's posse had been selected, and for it to be against one of her friends? It  _could_  just be a coincidence, but if so it was a highly suspicious one. She grabbed onto Luna's hand when the blonde moved to step forward. "You had better win," she whispered in the witch's ear. "I will not have my girlfriend lose a fight to Longbottom of all people."

Luna whirled around, her big silver eyes popping out as she squeaked, "Girlfriend?!"

"Provided you win."

The skinny blonde sprinted to the stage, and Padma leaned towards her, a wide grin on her face. "That was  _mean_."

"Mmm. Probably." She shot the Hindi girl a smirk of her own. "But more importantly, it was funny."

"That, too."

Luna had barely pulled her head back up from her bow when she opened her attack, not one but three pink spells flying and singeing the air. The stinging hexes flew at Longbottom's face, and though he raised a shield to deflect the blows, the jets of light impacting the protective enchantments around the stage, all going on the defensive did was provide her with more time to prepare her next volley. Apparently bolstered by putting him on the defensive, she kept hammering him, spells every color of the rainbow barking from her wand in quick succession. They splashed against his barrier, ripples dancing across the surface like raindrops on a pond, and feeling the strain, Longbottom took a step back. Luna laughed joyously, caught up in the match, and turned to shoot Jen a wide smile.  _'Do you see this?!'_ , it seemed to say.  _'I'm really doing it!'_

Jen's response was quite different. "Don't just stand there! Finish him!"

Sadly, her shout of warning was swallowed up by the other Ravens' cheers, and it was then that Longbottom turned the tables on her. No longer held down by the incessant barrage, he slashed his wand through the air, and blue sparks spurted across the stage before detonating in small bursts of light like a camera's flash. Luna clamped her eyes shut to ward off the light and jabbed her wand at him, but with her no longer able to aim her hex went high. Dropping to his knees to stay out of her blind spellfire, he gave his wand a short swirl and flick; Luna's feet flew out from under her, her shoes coming off as the boy's summoning charm kept tugging on them. The impact knocked the wind out of her, and while she gasped and coughed, one final spell ripped her wand from her hand.

The Gryffindors cheered as their lead grew to three to one, and through the shouts Jen could hear Weasley's loud guffaw when Luna tried to stand and fell as her socks slid on the slick stage.  _What is he laughing at?_ , she snarled in her mind, and with that her friendly façade was pushed past the breaking point. Her cheeks stung as a wide grin stretched over her face, the expression filled with casual malice. Padma took one look at her visage and hastily stepped away, brown eyes wide from fright.

_She should be glad her sister has already fought._

"Very good, very good," James announced while Longbottom handed Luna back her wand and shoes. Exactly whom he was cheering was uncertain, but Jen had her suspicions. "Next up is…"

He looked at the cards in his hands and frowned slightly. "Ron Weasley and Jennifer Black."

"Wonderful," she purred quietly, the word too soft to be heard beyond her immediate neighbors. The icy magic running through her body throbbed in time to the accelerating beats of her heart, and her fellow Ravenclaws muttered excitedly as she passed, eager for a show.

It was too bad that she would have to disappoint them. A plan was hatching in her mind, a course of retribution that was perfect for this particular audience. She wouldn't kill the ginger bastard – her rage was not burning so hot that she would make that mistake – but death was only one form of punishment she could offer. It was her preference, she would admit, but for this, for mocking someone who was  _hers_? Outright humiliation would work just as well, and probably even better.

Luna walked towards her on her way down from the stage, head bent low in shame, and Jen stopped short and stretched out her arm. Her hand landed on Luna's far shoulder and squeezed gently, and the blonde twitched in worried expectation. Leaning forwards slightly, the amethyst-eyed witch murmured, "You did good, Luna. Not great, but good enough that we're still on for the nineteenth."

Luna jerked her head up and stared, her eyes sparkling with delight at hearing that their date in Hogsmeade would happen as planned. Jen softened her smile for just a moment and continued on to the platform. As she climbed the low steps, Weasley bounced on the balls of his feet, his grin testament to his excitement and confidence. She had never shown up to James's  _'tutoring sessions'_ , had made it clear to anyone who asked that she never would. Weasley clearly thought that the meager training he had received this year would give him an edge.

She would have to correct that misconception.

"Ready? And bow," James ordered. Weasley did so, his red hair flopping in front of his face; Jen did not move and kept staring at the wizard. When he raised his head enough for her to see his eyes, she gave her blank wand a quick up-and-down flick. Her summoning charm ripped Weasley's wand out of his hand, and he had only a moment to stare stupefied as it soared through the air and landed a couple of feet in front of her before the bludgeoning hex she had first cast slammed into him like a punch to the gut and dropped him to the ground.

Silence filled the room, broken only by Weasley's wheezing. After a few moments, James cleared his throat. "I suppose your ignorance about dueling customs is understandable since you have not shown up to even a single one of our sessions, but it is considered polite to wait until your opponent is ready before—"

"The Lithuanians and the Ottoman Empire." James blinked at the non sequitur. "Surely you remember your own lessons, Professor Potter. Lithuania in the fifteenth century boasted the best duelists in all of Eastern Europe. When the Ottoman Empire invaded, the Lithuanian government drafted all of the country's duelists and sent them to the front lines, predicting that their skills and experience would make routing the Ottoman war mages a simple task. The resulting fight was definitely a bloodbath, but with the Lithuanians making up most of the casualties." She shot him a toothy grin. "Though there were numerous logistical mistakes made, what struck me as the most interesting error was that each one of the former duelists began their engagements with all the courtesy expected in a tournament ring, and the Ottoman fighters took advantage of that stupidity and cut them down to a man."

Seeing that the elder wizard was about to argue, she pressed on, "Or would you prefer a more current example? You are the one who reminded us that You-Know-Who has returned. Tell me, Professor, how many times in the last war did the Aurors stop to observe all the formal niceties before they engaged the Death Eaters? Unless, of course, your earlier announcement was so much bluster."

"I… suppose you have a point," he ground out. "It's your win. Return Mr. Weasley's wand to him, and we'll continue."

She raised one eyebrow and nodded. Taking a single step forward, she lashed out with her right foot. Weasley's wand skipped across the stage to him, but he did not reach out to pick it up. Instead he stared up at her, red suffusing his face and climbing to the tips of his ears, and the other students gasped.

In a culture primarily dependent on wands to express their magic and elevate them above the common Muggle, it should not be surprising that caring for one's wand was an expected chore. Wizards and witches both went to great lengths to polish their wands regularly and make sure that there were no cracks or dings in the wood. Magical wars could last for years without dropped or disarmed wands being damaged, and in fact, the only time a witch's wand was intentionally snapped was if she was expelled from the magical world entirely. Even those sentenced to the Dementor's Kiss had their wands burned alongside their bodies.

Her kicking Weasley's wand to him like a piece of rubbish, then, was a grievous insult; blood feuds between Houses had started over far less. She had for all intents and purposes declared that she did not think him fit to wield magic.

Perhaps if she had been given time to calm herself, she would have reconsidered her impulsive decision, but at this moment?  _Between the half-hug I gave Luna today and the time I declared that she was under the protection of my House last year, anyone with two brain cells should be able to put the pieces together and know the mistake Weasley made earlier. Cissy and Sirius are going to have my head, though_. Another thought crossed her mind and left her unsure whether to laugh or grimace.  _I_ _ **did**_ _tell Morag that when Luna and I figured out our relationship, we'd let her know. Hopefully she'll take this in lieu of a spoken announcement._

Jen's gaze wandered over the crowed and stopped on Granger. The snub to her friend, combined with whatever other grudge the Lion was nursing, had set her positively quivering in barely restrained fury. The brunette's eyes met Jen's, and if the other witch was not seething before, she certainly was now. "Professor Potter," Granger demanded, "are we allowed to issue specific challenges?"

"Well, I suppose—"

"I challenge Black," she snarled before James could realize what he had just agreed to.

"Is that so? Then get up here already."

The wizard flicked worried hazel eyes between the two enraged witches before sighing in resignation. With the challenge issued and answered, there was little he could do to reverse his allowance without the class erupting into anarchy. "Fine. Hermione Granger versus Jennifer Black."

As Granger stormed toward the steps where Weasley was finally descending, a few snippets of conversation floated to Jen's ears;  _'Gonna be a beatdown'_ ,  _'Kick her arse'_ , and  _'Do you think they're dating?'_  foremost among them. At the last, she glanced over to find Luna covering her face with her hands, though the blonde was peeking between her fingers and her cheeks were still warm with a rosy blush.

She expected something before the fight, some insult or drama or even a declaration that she would rue the day, but all Granger did when she took her place was shoot her a glare so hot that Jen was mildly surprised the air between them did not burst into flame. Without even waiting for James's call to begin, the Gryffindor snapped her wand, a jet of flat red light flashing between them only to be stopped by Jen's ethereal shield.

 _A stunning charm, hmm? Interesting choice. It's not excessive by any means, but compared to the spells everyone else was using, it's the tiniest bit vicious and certainly borderline for the rules of this little exhibition. She must be rather cross with me indeed_. A faint smile appeared on her lips, and she tilted her head, curious about what Granger would choose to throw out next. If the scowl and the piercing hex that smashed against the barrier were any indication, her expression of admittedly condescending interest was not appreciated.

 _Well, well; it seems the Lion has some fangs, after all. Let's see just how far you're willing to walk down this road with me._  Rather than lower her defense to counterattack, Jen took a step towards Granger. Then another. And another. Her shield charm moved with her, and it was only after she closed half the distance that Granger started getting worried. The spells started coming faster, and step by step they also crossed the line into truly damaging hexes and even a Confundus Charm that caused Jen's smirk to twitch with dark excitement for a moment. The impacts of those attacks required more energy to maintain her shield, but as her connection to the planet's reserves provided her with power to spare, she kept the barrier up and continued her implacable pursuit.

Ten feet. Seven. Five. Granger backed away, desperate to get more space, but she stopped with a look of panic on her face when her heels slipped past the edge of the platform. Still Jen came closer, until there was less than a foot of space between her shield and the tip of Granger's wand. She rolled her head to the other side, her smile only widening the faintest fraction.

Faster than Granger could react, she dropped the shield and fired a banishing charm. The spell was nowhere near its full power – that would have thrown the other witch through the crowd behind her and into the stone wall – but instead was just enough to lightly shove her off the stage. The rest of the room was utterly silent, eyes wide at the reminder of the raw magical power she could bring to bear, and possibly also at her silent and steady march. The number of people strong enough to walk through a river of spellfire like a juggernaut was incredibly tiny; in Britain, the obvious name to know was Dumbledore, and some included Voldemort in that number, too. From her generation, however, the only one she knew of was Viktor Krum, and that was due entirely to how he had been able to keep up with her during their duel in the Slytherin Task of the Triwizard Tournament.

It was hard for people to stand against an enemy when they knew that all fighting would do was ensure they would die tired. A quick refresher that she was on that list as well was in order, if only to head off anyone dumb enough to go after her court or her kids.

"I take it that this is my win, as well?" she asked, her quiet voice sliding effortlessly through the silence.

James startled and shook himself at being addressed. "Yes, of course. The rules were until disarming or expulsion."

"Fantastic." She hopped off the side of the platform and walked back to the outside of the crowd. Upon reaching her friends, she casually slung one arm around Luna's shoulders and panned her gaze over the rest of the class, daring someone to make a comment. No one was stupid enough to take her up on it.

"Well, er…" James rustled in his pockets for another couple of cards. "Let's… Let's keep going, then. Fay Dunbar and Kevin Entwhistle, it's your turn."

* * *

**So much for my private pledge to try to make James less of an asshole for the rest of this book. Sadly, his determination to prove he's right about how to reconcile with Jen is exactly the same as Harry's was to prove that Draco was a Death Eater in book 6, and we all know that means there is nothing that will pull that dog away from his bone. Of course, now he knows that humiliating Luna in the process is a bad,** _**bad** _ **idea.**

**An idle question. I know Cho being one of Luna's bullies is a common idea in the fandom, but is there any direct canon evidence for it or is it just the implication of the** _**'Nargle-infested mistletoe'** _ **scene?**

**Silently Watches out.**


	32. Detentions and Distractions

**Cjhoax:**  The main reason Jen seems a little over-powered right now is that she's been dealing with students; she is clearly stronger and more skilled than they are. It will be the end of this book and the rest of the series where she will finally be fighting other people on her level, and things won't be quite so curb-stompy at that point.

 **Antony444, Guest #4:**  Hermione is an odd duck, all right, and for last chapter and this one, I'm focusing on an aspect of her character that is often forgotten in fanfiction. This is, after all, the girl who lit a professor on fire to distract him; who arranged for an explosion around dangerous chemicals as a distraction for her burglary; who punched Malfoy for badmouthing Hagrid; who kidnapped and blackmailed Skeeter for writing derogatory articles about Harry; who tried to trick the house elves into freeing themselves despite everyone (including the species she wanted to help!) telling her that her interference was unwelcome; who gave Umbridge to the centaurs, a species that, in Greek mythology, had a bad habit of raping women to death; who was a bitch to Fleur out of either jealousy or insecurity; and who Confounded McLaggen so Ron could be the Gryffindor Keeper. For all that she can come across as "as much of a Ravenclaw as the actual Ravenclaws", she all too often lets her passions rule her, and in the case of her duel with Jen, she immediately leapt to revenge.

**This week's disclaimer has nothing to do with the chapter itself, but it's something I noticed while watching the first movie again a couple of weeks ago.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did Dumbledore leave the Mirror of Erised, an artifact he told Harry had driven the people who were caught up in its depths mad, in an unlocked room only a short distance from the library? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 32  
** **Detentions and Distractions**

The words of Professor Vector's lecture washed over Hermione, and though her quill kept scratching at the roll of parchment in front of her, her attention was not on the notes she was taking. No, her eyes and her mind instead kept flicking up toward someone else in the classroom, someone she felt should be kept far away from everyone in Hogwarts.

Preferably in prison.

Yet there Black sat, bold as brass and continuing her act of innocence. Now that Hermione knew the truth about the other witch, that she was a heartless murderer, so many of the little things Hermione had idly noticed over the past year and a half made so much more sense. The girl's casual disdain wasn't just her thinking herself above everyone around her but actually viewing herself as being the only one whose life held value. The fake smile was a mask to hide her sins from the world. The way she flaunted her adopted family's money and power might not just be a slap to the face to the Potters but also a warning of the resources she had available should anyone try to trace her crimes back to her.

_Well, we'll see just how much protection those things really give you, won't we?_

She had debated with herself about whether she should expose that darkest part of Black's history to the world ever since Mrs. Potter had revealed it to her; on the one hand, it was  _murder_ , but on the other, if the accusations the elder witch had leveled at her own sister were anywhere near accurate, there was a very good chance that a jury would find her actions justified. Hermione personally did not think they were, but after four years in the Wizarding World she had finally had to accept that her opinions about this society's barbarism were unwelcome. Muggles might be considered  _'lesser'_  and  _'backward'_  by wizards, but at least they had not executed anyone since the sixties. Compare that to the Ministry of Magic's reliance on the Dementor's Kiss, the most horrifying implementation of capital punishment ever conceived, and which culture was truly more civilized became clear!

For all her agonizing, however, it was Monday's Defense Against the Dark Arts class that was the tipping point. The entire school was abuzz about how Black humiliated Ron and her, but somehow Black had again avoided any of the consequences of her actions! The Ravenclaws had been quick to spread the word that Ron had laughed at Lovegood after her duel with Neville – which, yes, was rude of him – as well as rumors that Black was merely avenging her girlfriend's honor, and suddenly everything she had done was perfectly acceptable. Then came the tale of what Black did to Chang when the Asian girl had bullied Lovegood and how Professor Flitwick had praised her for it and…

Hermione cut off her mental rant before she could work herself up any further. The previous year, she had compared Black to Malfoy in that both relied on their family's money and influence in 'polite society' to get away with whatever they wanted, but now she knew the truth: Black was worse. At least Malfoy only  _talked_ about killing off the  _'Mudbloods and filthy Muggles'_.

True, abusing Ron on the dueling stage was something that could and likely would be ignored, but killing three people was a different thing entirely. She had sent a letter to Rita Skeeter after classes that Monday, and the four days since should have been more than enough time for the muckraking journalist to investigate her claims. It was unlikely that Aurors would burst into the Great Hall during lunch to arrest Black, but as long as she was carted off and could no longer pose a threat to everyone else—

"Miss Granger, your attention, if you please."

She jumped, Professor Vector's voice pulling her out of her reflection. The instructor gave her a disapproving frown, and somehow that affected her even more than one of Professor McGonagall's glares. Perhaps it was because the Arithmancy teacher was normally so ebullient? Professor Vector turned back to the class at large and continued, "Over the past year and a half, I have done my best to teach you how to break spells down into their individual components, as well as how to analyze unusual elements to determine their purpose. Now it is time for you to put those skills to the test.

"All of you remember when I told you that most spells are not completely defined, right?" The class as a whole nodded. "The true purpose of Arithmancy is to understand the mechanics, the  _'how'_ , of magic, and we can only do that when we plunge into the unknown. So, I am assigning you a project, due the thirty-first of May: find a spell that is still incomplete and finish it."

"You want us to do what?!" Sophie Roper shouted in dismay.

"Yes, Miss Roper, you heard correctly." The class shot each other panicked glances, and Professor Vector sighed. "This will not be as bad as you seem to think it is. I am not looking for any of you to unravel the mysteries of the universe, and I don't even care if your final equation is right. What I want to see is that you understand what spell functions mean and how to apply that knowledge. Your grade will be based on having a completed equation and the logic you follow to come to your conclusions, so make sure you write down all your work, even the theories you work on that you later discard. If you need some help to get you going, I have a list of spells that I have already verified are still unsolved.

"To make this project even easier, I am also assigning each of you a partner. Both members of the group will be required to hand in all calculations, so make sure that you work together on this, not set out to do the entire project independently." Pulling a roll of parchment out of her pocket, she continued, "First, Miss Roper and Mister Malfoy."

Hermione sighed in relief. There weren't many students taking Arithmancy, mostly because it was considered the hardest class offered at Hogwarts, and it had been a nasty surprise when she had discovered that Malfoy would be one of her classmates. Thankfully he had the sense to not spew his bigotry in the class itself, though all throughout her third year she had been forced to deal with his taunts once they were both out the door.

Danny and Ron thought she had punched him only because of his comments about Buckbeak and Hagrid, but in reality that had simply been the straw that broke the camel's back.

"Miss Abbot and Miss Lovegood." The two blondes looked at each other for a moment and shrugged, though Hermione saw the latter share a saddened glance with Black right after that. Maybe there was something to those dating rumors, after all. She honestly could not see  _why_  either would fancy the other, however; Black was both a bitch and also a proud member of the magical aristocracy, which only made her less tolerable, while Lovegood was widely considered to be more than a little insane. Neither had anything she could offer to the other. Then, of course, there was also the issue of both of them being girls. Ignoring her own opinions about lesbians, that an unconventional relationship like this would be so easily accepted, especially in light of how Victorian the Wizarding World could be, still seemed very strange.

"Miss Granger and Miss Black."

" _What_?!"

"You have got to be joking."

"No, this is not a joke," Professor Vector said to Black. "And no, you can't change your partner. Mr. Boot, you and Miss Moon."

Hermione crossed her arms, mind whirling. Did Professor Vector honestly expect her and Black to work together for most of the next two terms? On second thought, maybe being Malfoy's partner would not be too bad, after all; at least with him, she would be sure that she was not in arm's reach of a cold-blooded killer.

The rest of the groups were quickly assigned, and shortly after Professor Vector finished the bells chimed the end of fourth period. "Remember, this project is due in May, and I want notice of what spell you have chosen on my desk by the end of next month! The sooner you do that, the more time you'll have to work on it. Have a good weekend!"

Packing her belongings slowly, she went over the argument forming in her head. She really, really did not want to spend any more time with Black than absolutely necessary. Her inkwell went into its pocket, and with her desk now clear, she looked up and nearly screamed her frustration to the heavens.

Black had apparently had the same idea.

Professor Vector looked over them, her normal good humor quickly being replaced by a stern frown. "I hope we're not about to have a problem, girls."

"I hope not, either," Black said, her too-sweet tone clearly faked. "But there is a slight issue. I don't know if you've heard—"

"About your little spat in Defense Against the Dark Arts? The one where you two got on the dueling stage after your friends were embarrassed and ignored nearly every rule of decorum? That issue?" A none-too-impressed expression flickered over her face. "I don't think there's anyone in the whole school who hasn't heard about that by now, Miss Black."

Much as she did not want to agree with the Dark witch, Hermione jumped in, "She does have a point, though. Making the two of us work together is just asking for trouble."

"What, because you don't like each other?" The teacher snorted and shook her head. "Let me give you a useful piece of advice: for the rest of your lives, you're going to have to work with people you don't like, and you won't be able to request that you be kept apart. You just have to learn to deal with it."

"But—"

"Miss Granger, I. Don't. Care. I don't care what is the cause of your dislike for each other or who insulted whose friend first. It has no place in my classroom, or in anyone else's, for that matter. You can want each other dead for all that it matters to me, but when it interferes with my class, it becomes a problem."

"You might not be totally wrong on that sentiment," Black muttered. A nasty smirk grew on her lips, and purple eyes flicked over toward Hermione in a silent threat.

A threat she was not going to let stand unanswered. "Like you'd ever be brave enough to try it without your lackeys backing you up."

"Sure you want to go there, Granger? I've never been good at resisting temptation."

"Detention!" Professor Vector snapped, glaring at both of them. "Both of you. Here. After dinner. I'm already tired of this. You two are prefects, supposed to be role models for the younger students. Start acting like it!"

"Understood," Black said in a biting tone. "If I may be excused?"

The instructor waved them out, and the two witches exchanged another glare before walking down the hall in different directions.

 _Detention!_ , Hermione growled in her head.  _Black is the one threatening me, and I get punished, too? Where's the fairness in that?_

_But fine. I'll go to the detention, get through whatever it is Professor Vector wants us to do, and hold my tongue. Skeeter can't resist taking shots at the rich and powerful; all I have to do is wait for her to publish her article, and Black won't be a problem for anyone anymore._

* * *

Jen walked into Vector's classroom that evening, the clocktower ringing the short chimes that marked half past the hour, and immediately frowned at the setup she found waiting for her. The professor had rearranged the furniture, the front row of desks pushed flush against the row behind and the chairs stacked on top of each other and set against the walls. All the chairs except two, that was, which were instead placed in the middle of the empty space facing each other.

A quick glance at Granger's scowl told her that the other teenage witch knew equally as well what was about to happen. "Is there any chance I can serve this detention with Filch, instead?" she asked in a flat tone.

"How funny; Miss Granger asked me the exact same thing!" Vector exclaimed in a falsely chipper voice. "You two are more similar than you think! And no, you can't. Sit."

"I'd really rather stand, Professor," Granger said, only to look away when the woman pierced her with her a sharp stare. Rather than face their teacher's temper and possibly another of these 'interventions', Jen walked over and flung herself into the nearer seat. With her trouser-clad legs crossed at the knee and her hands hanging limply over the chair arms, she projected an ease that was totally at odds with the tension actually building in her body.

The glare Granger gave her told her that the little bit of misdirection had succeeded on at least one of her targets.

Not to be outdone, or perhaps just accepting the futility of further resistance, the other teen settled in the opposite chair and crossed her arms with a short huff. Vector looked them both over and sighed. "When I was making up pairs for your project, I didn't just pick names out of a hat. I chose you two to be partners because I see the tremendous amount of talent you possess, talent that would only be greater if you would put your heads together.

"Miss Granger," Vector said, looking at the brunette, "I have been teaching for seven years, and very rarely have I seen anyone, let alone a student, with the understanding of arithmantic theory that your essays show." Turning her eyes to Jen, she continued, "Miss Black, there is only one other student in this school who even approaches the skill you have for translating a spell's formula into its physical waveform, and he is the best student in my seventh-year class. I told the class that I wasn't expecting them to push the boundaries of our understanding of magic, but if you two would just set aside this grudge you have and pool your abilities, I honestly think you could do just that."

Jen and Granger both had skeptical expressions at that declaration, and Vector sighed again and held out her hand. "Your wands."

 _Did she really make that demand?_ , Jen thought while raising her eyebrow, and from the corner of her eye she could make out the Lion's aghast face. Vector did not look like she was joking, and a brief brush against the professor's mind with her mental probes informed her that the woman was not going to back down on this. For a moment she considered diving deeper, but trial and error – evidence of the latter hidden with a little covert memory modification – had shown that witches' minds were harder to peek in than Muggles' were. It took a great deal of concentration to stay inside for more than a couple of seconds, and without a distraction to keep spectators' attention off her disconnect with the outside world – reading someone's mind while walking in a straight line or making vague responses was about the limit of her multitasking ability – it would be obvious what she was doing.

Instead, she pulled her blank wand out of her pocket and handed it over.

Granger stared at her action, but now without any other recourse, slowly drew her own wand and reluctantly gave it to Vector. The pale wood was a stark contrast to Jen's own darkly polished prop, and the black witch smirked a bit at the coincidence. Handling the two foci with all due care, the professor continued, "Your detention is simple and should prove to be far less painful than whatever task Mister Filch could conceive of. For the next half-hour at the very least, you are going to talk to each other. I don't care what it's about – the reason for this mutual enmity, your project, who you find fanciable, what have you – so long as you  _talk_. I believe, if you actually approach this with an open mind, that you'll find you have far more in common than you think."

A scoff came from Granger's side of the room while Jen merely rolled her eyes.

"Regardless, thirty minutes. I'll be in my office, so I will know if you two try to sneak out and return just to get your wands back." With that, Vector stomped out.

 _You'll know if we leave, but is it because your office is right next door or because your little listening charm will let you know?_ , she wondered as her sonar felt the tiny vortex of magic spinning contentedly on the front desk. The middle of the charm changed into a string that slipped toward and through the back wall, which only strengthened her suspicion.  _I guess I'll have to watch my words. That means no taunting Granger unnecessarily; if she blows up at me when I provoked nothing, it puts me in a better light._

The bushy-headed Lion was making that difficult, though; the glare on her face was extremely similar to the one Jen had received during their little dueling match. With an unhappy sigh the Black heiress leaned to one side and propped her head up on her closed fist, her elbow braced against the arm of the chair. Her purple eyes met Granger's brown, and she wondered who would cave first.

Not too surprisingly, it was the brash Gryffindor who broke the silence. "This is your fault."

"Oh? I'm curious how this is any more my doing than yours. I didn't make you open your mouth, nor stick your foot in it."

"This is your fault because you came here!" Granger screeched. "Instead of doing the decent thing for once in your life and staying away, you walk around like you own the castle and cause more problems that we don't need! There's enough danger outside the school already, and we don't need someone like you making trouble inside, too!"

"Careful, Granger, your eyes are turning green," Jen said with a cold smile. There certainly seemed to be some envy there, but overall the girl's rant just left her confused.  _'Someone like you_ '? What could that possibly mean?

The Lion's eyes glinted in rage. "You think that's all it is? That I'm jealous?! Why would I be jealous of a foul,  _evil_  monster like you?!" Her voice lowered as she hissed, "I know your secret, Black. You're a murderer."

Jen picked her head up and stared hard at Granger. There were numerous accusations she had expected the other witch to throw out, but that particular option was most definitely not one of them. "Murder?" she asked in a hard tone, though her eyes flickered to the listening charm. "That's a bold claim. I dearly hope you have some evidence to back it up; slandering the heir of an Ancient and Most Noble House rarely ends well."

"I can get it," Granger shot back. "You're condescending, self-centered, and arrogant; you think you're better than other wizards, let alone Muggles. I bet you left mountains of evidence behind when you killed the Dursleys."

 _What the hell?! How did she even hear that name… The Potters_. Jen kept her surprise and anger off her face with some difficulty, masking them with a slow blink. "Who?"

"You know damn well who I'm talking about!"

"No, I really don't," she said with a shake of her head. This was getting out of hand, and worse, she had no way to stop it. If it were just Granger she was dealing with, she could erase the relevant memories, but the spell on the table made things more complicated. Listening charms could be used to hear what was said at another location, hence the name, but they could also be tied to a DictaQuill so the conversation could be transcribed and read at the eavesdropper's leisure. That meant that there could potentially be a physical record of their discussion. Worse, she couldn't just crush the spell like she wanted to, not now; just like running from the police, dispelling it would only imply that this was true and that she had something to hide.

 _Maybe I should have kidnapped and interrogated her, after all_.

"Don't treat me like an idiot, Black," Granger snapped. "We both know who the Dursleys are: your aunt and uncle, your mother's sister."

Jen forced out a dismissive sigh, which was hard to do when all she wanted was to growl at this arrogant little know-it-all sticking her nose where it wasn't wanted. Scratch kidnapping; if she had a way to go back in time, she would correct this oversight and kill the girl over the winter hols. Unfortunately, even the best Time-Turners only went back three days, so she would have to content herself with damage control. "Not this nonsense again. Let me make sure I have this right: your accusation is that I murdered some Muggles because they were related to the wife of the man who got my mother pregnant. And you think this… why? What possible motive could I have for any of that?"

"Because of how they treated you! You wanted revenge!"

"So now, not only do you think I'm actually Lily Potter's daughter, I'm also supposed to have been mistreated by a bunch of Muggles? What's next, the Potters thought I was a squib?" Granger's face purpled in rage, and Jen laughed, the sound hard and utterly lacking in humor. "Are you listening to yourself? I don't know who's really the delusional one anymore; did Potter even tell you this, or is it something that sprang out of your own twisted mind?"

Granger threw herself out of the chair, either to start on another tirade or perhaps to throw a punch, but neither was something Jen was just going to take. The way she was sitting let her raise her leg and plant her foot in the Gryffindor's gut, and with a snarl she shoved the girl away, the force of her kick amplified by the uncoiling of her body as well as a small banishing charm. Granger rocketed back into her chair, which promptly flipped over and spilled her to the floor. Jen, meanwhile, shot to her feet, her heart pounding and her blood and magic roaring for her to crush the girl. "I'm going to give you one warning, Granger: never try to lash out at me. Do it again, and I will tear you apart."

"Just try it!" the brunette taunted. "If you think you can beat me, go ahead! The whole country will still learn the truth about who you are and what you've done!"

"Are you threatening to  _blackmail_  me?" Granger only glared back at her, and this time her laughter was honest. "You think you're ready to play with the big girls. That is so cute."

"You think I won't do it? You don't know a thing about me, Black. I've dealt with more dangerous people than you."

Jen shook her head, astonished at how  _well_  this was turning out. When she thought about burying Granger, she wasn't expecting the Lion to dig her own grave. "First you accuse me of murder, and now you say I'm not that dangerous. Make up your mind." She kicked the fallen chair out of her way and stalked closer to the Lion to whisper, "And I know more about you than you think. For instance, I've heard that you think yourself a skilled blackmailer. A little bug told me  _all_ about it."

"Little… bug?" Granger muttered, and then her blood fled her face. "Skeeter told you about that? But… the article she wrote…"

"The one revealing my parentage? We had a nice little chat with her after that." She chuckled darkly. "It didn't take long for her to realize that she would do better working for my family than against us." Taking in Granger's pallid skin, her eyes sparkled. "Oh, was that what you were threatening me with? Sending all your lies to Rita and having her print them?" Her hand rose to cover her mouth, though it did nothing to hide the widening grin. "Oops."

Another laugh broke free, and she turned around and sauntered back to her chair. "By the way, a little bit of free advice: blackmailing is a felony, and if found guilty, you're likely to spend at least a few years in prison. That means you better make sure the information you're going to hold over someone's head is at least that damaging, or they'll have no reason not to turn you in to the DMLE. Accusing me of murder was a good one, but the problem there is that you have no proof. That's defamation of character in addition to blackmail; you could be looking at jail time if I decided to press charges." Jen shook her head in mock disappointment. "And you're supposed to be clever."

"You think that's it? You buy out a reporter, and I'm done?" Granger demanded.

"No. I think if you're going to accuse someone of murder without evidence, you had better hope you're wrong; otherwise, what's to stop that person from killing you to shut you up?" Jen's smile only grew sharper as she felt the Gryffindor shaking in impotent fury. It wasn't a bad plan, all things considered, but Granger just hadn't had a good enough hand. That did not change that her patience for this was just about gone, and thanks to the listening charm still sitting there recording every word they said.

"Now that that's been cleared up, let's move on to a more immediately pressing matter: the project Vector assigned us, specifically what we're going to do about us being partners. You clearly hate me for whatever reason, and I don't think too much of you, either. Unfortunately, that doesn't change the fact that we're stuck with each other for the next few months. I recommend we get this whole thing done as quickly as possible so we can go our separate ways."

Granger said nothing to that, so she added, "Unless you want to get yourself thrown in prison by flinging out unfounded allegations, in which case I'd really prefer you do it sooner rather than later. Keeps me from wasting my time putting up with you, you see."

"Or the DMLE investigates my claim and arrests you instead."

"If you're so sure of yourself, try it. See how it goes."  _This must be why she was sorted into Gryffindor rather than Ravenclaw_ , she realized.  _When backed into a corner, she thinks with her heart, not her head. Well, that and she sees the world for what she wants it to be rather than how it is. A Muggleborn witch threatening the scion of House Black of killing three Muggles? Even if I had left evidence, no one would listen to it. In this world, it's who you know that truly matters_.

Granger stormed over to the other side of the room and glared at her, but quite honestly she was tired of this conversation already. The key truth, the one Granger refused to acknowledge, was that justice was just not going to prevail this time. She had been too careful not to leave any evidence. Her cursed fire had destroyed any proof that she was even at the Dursleys', and thanks to the blood adoption, she barely had any connection with them anymore. Not to mention, she had more dirt on Granger than the Lion did on her, and for all the brunette's bluster, she knew it.

Checkmate.

The remainder of the half-hour passed slowly in silence, though during that time Granger had slowly regained her color and started chewing on her lip as if considering what options she had left in front of her. At the end of the detention period, Vector opened the door again, and Jen was surprised that the professor showed no signs of having heard the argument they had had. The listening charm must be connected to a DictaQuill, after all.

 _That, or it wasn't her doing_ , she thought, casting her attention to the spell again.  _Which is an even scarier thought_.

"Dear Merlin," Vector grouched, "do not tell me you spent the last thirty minutes glaring at each other!"

"Not at all. We hashed a few things out and decided that we can work together for as long as it takes to finish your assignment. Isn't that right, Granger?" she called out.

Said witch ground her teeth together before finally giving them a stiff nod. "Right."

Vector crossed her arms and shook her head. "I don't think I can express how disappointed I am in the both of you. Did you even try to get along at all?"

"Professor," Jen said with an irritated sigh, "there are some things you just can't talk out. This, I believe, is going to be one of them. Now, if we can be excused? I still have homework to do."

* * *

Opening the door, Jen hopped out of the thestral-drawn carriage and into the thick carpet of fresh snow spread out on the ground. A storm had moved in a few nights earlier, which made many worried that the Hogsmeade trip would be cancelled, but after painting the village white it had blown itself out. A soft clearing of the throat behind her made her smile a bit and step out of the way, and Luna stepped down next to her. "I didn't think it was going to be this cold," the blonde muttered, arms crossed tight against her chest. The bright red cloak hanging off her shoulders clashed hideously with the lavender winter robe underneath, yet the ensemble still somehow evoked the idea of Little Red Riding Hood, albeit one with zero color coordination.

Considering how tasty she thought the little blonde, did that make her the Big Bad Wolf?

Jen rolled her eyes at that sappy thought and threw a warming charm over them, then hooked her elbow around Luna's when the younger witch relaxed her arms. "You're the one who asked me out," she reminded Luna. "Should I presume that means you have a plan, or is this all to be spur of the moment?"

Luna laughed, a delicate, tinkling sound. "I had enough trouble putting all my words together just to ask you. Do you really think I had any solid plans?" The blonde shook her head. "The others said they would be eating lunch around one at the Three Broomsticks, so we can decide whether or not we want to join them later on. But other than that?"

With no definite plans, the pair simply meandered through the shops, enjoying the warmth and the easy camaraderie. The bookstore, where they entertained each other with random excerpts from the oddest books they could find; the highlight of their search had definitely been when Luna picked up a book with the innocent enough title of  _Deeper into the Burrow_  and flipped it open to read only to discover that it was actually a rather lurid bit of erotica. Of course, despite how red her cheeks were at that point, they just burned hotter when Jen crept up behind her, wrapped white-clad arms around her waist, and continued reading where the blonde left off in a quiet whisper meant for their ears only. The Black heiress honestly thought Luna was half a second from spontaneously combusting when she finished the scene.

Honeydukes, where they browsed the Valentine's selection that was already out despite the holiday itself being almost a month away. The owners of the shop were offering a ten-sickle unlimited tasting of experimental flavors, and Jen had been unable to resist Luna's pleading eyes upon seeing that they had blueberry panna cotta balls and a pretzel-like pastry the blonde had seen in Sweden the summer before. Two golden galleons had sated the younger witch's desire to try the unusual treats, with some of the change going for an enormous caramel apple that they shared walking down the street.

The pet shop, where Luna cooed over a basket full of kittens and a low-walled cage containing what Jen at first thought were giant pastel hairballs before they started humming and rolling around. She went to the feed section of the building to look for a small box or bag of honeycomb for Loki while Luna flitted along behind her, interest piqued by seemingly every animal available, even the spiny toads and a bright orange, three-headed snake that had a sign on its cage warning all customers not to stick their hands inside. Eventually, though, the blonde sighed and let Jen pull her out of the smelly store without purchasing a pet, though the younger Raven did send a few mournful gazes back at the shop as they left.

By the time their stomachs had finished off the various sweets they had eaten and were clamoring for more sustenance, they had passed by all the shops that had anything of interest to them.  _Hogsmeade really isn't that big_ , she noted silently as they walked side-by-side down High Street.  _Even after just a year and a half, there's nothing new or exciting. It makes sense why most sixth- and seventh-years prefer to stay inside the castle during the winter Hogsmeade days_. A sharp bang shook the cold air, and the violently purple bus that appeared with the noise disgorged a number of teens who blended into the rest of the crowd.  _Well, stay inside the castle or use it as an excuse to go elsewhere_.

Brushing the snow that had started falling again off the shoulders of her dragonhide coat, she pondered what she could do to make the day a little more interesting. This… relationship? experiment?… whatever she and Luna had was something new and strange, and contrary to what she might have expected before all this started, Luna's rejection of her advances their first night back had only intrigued her more. All her previous 'relationships', even her tryst with Viktor to a certain extent, had had sex as the central focus, and so she was understandably curious what Luna was looking for instead.

 _Ah, now there's an idea_.

"Think it's about time to get something to eat?" she asked. The high-pitched rumbling emanating from Luna's belly gave her the answer to her question, and she shook her head in amusement and led the girl to a little shop she had spotted during her disastrous 'date' with McLaggen. Unlike the Three Broomsticks, which was a proper pub and served full meals, her destination was a café that had been founded by a Muggleborn and sold primarily sandwiches and soups and bottles of ginger beer rather than the more common butterbeer.

Juggling the bags containing their sandwiches and the cold bottles, Luna glanced at Jen the second they were outside again and accused, "You're up to something."

"Me? Up to something? Whyever would you think that?" The blonde shot her a flat stare, and she could not hold in her short laugh. "You'll just have to wait and see. We aren't going far."

Close to the ruins of the Shrieking Shack was a small footpath, something she had noticed after bringing the building down on the heads of her attackers earlier in the year, and though she had no idea where it led, the two girls walked along it for a few minutes. The path wandered up a hill near the edge of the town, and though it then curved away and snaked in the direction of the Forbidden Forest, Jen looked over a small clearing at the top of the hill. This would do nicely.

Luna seemed to agree, staring intently at the trees surrounding their impromptu picnic spot. "You know, I've never been able to tell which are red oaks and which are white oaks. Do you know the difference?"

"They're both just trees to me," came her absent reply, her attention focused on something else. Unable to find what she was looking for, she snapped her fingers, summoning six acorns to her hand and distracting Luna from her musings.

"Jen, what are you—"

"Just watch." Walking to the edge of the clearing, which ended just before the hill sloped sharply downwards toward the village, she dropped four of the acorns into the snow to mark the corners of a long rectangle. She smirked a little as she envisioned what she wanted and snapped again. After a moment, green stalks grew from the ground and began to move on their own, branches sprouting and tangling themselves together randomly to make four walls a little over a foot high. From the wall nearest to the village, the still-thin limbs reached backwards to create a lid of sorts for the rectangular box, while the side walls did similarly and wove their own branches through those already present before having them rise straight up for another foot and then curling away and around. The wall closest to Jen and Luna, however, sent its own branches up and slightly toward the witches for three feet or so before the tips bent to the side and grabbed onto their neighbors.

The bare bones of her creation finished, it was time for the luxuries. The bark of the four misshapen plants darkened to the point that they were nearly black, and from the back, sides, and flat bottom, leaves the red of deep autumn rather than the green of new growth appeared and reached to the front and inside. Another second, and the color of those leaves flowed into the empty air and became soft cushions with an oak leaf brocade.

Jen clapped her hands together and flung them to the sky, and from her cupped palms came a small white flame. It grew and split into two, then four, then eight, dividing itself multiple times until a ring of flickering fire floated in the air and fell gently to the snowy ground. For all the delight on Luna's face at the scene, that particular part of the production was just meant to distract the blonde from the warming charm Jen cast around the clearing. A wave of one arm had the snow on the ground flowing like water into a column a few inches thick and the slightest bit taller than she was, which then shrank as she transfigured it into a marble pillar with two arms. On one of those arms she hung her duster, the faint green and blue streaks in the Opaleye's scales now more noticeable against the snow-white background.

Turning to Luna, she waved her hand over the coat rack and the wicker loveseat. "Well? What do you think?"

Her question shook the girl from her astonished staring. "It's… Wow. I didn't know you could do that." Eyes narrowing playfully, Luna then demanded, "Why haven't you done this before?"

"Honestly? There's little point in showmanship like this most of the time. Why go through all the effort when no one cares and it's easier to just clap my hands and conjure what I need?"

 _Not to mention, I tend to be more subtle with my distractions_ , she added, one hand coming up to play with the heart-shaped garnet hanging from her choker. That was actually the perfect example of her normal kind of misdirection; there was no way she was going to let everyone know that she possessed the Resurrection Stone, but while hiding the Treasure itself was as simple as turning the collar so the Stone was covered by her hair, that in turn invited the question of why she would wear a plain black band around her neck. To avoid that, she had gone to a Muggle jeweler before her return to Hogwarts and bought a simple adornment she could magic onto the leather strap. Now all who saw it would think it a normal piece of jewelry, and with their curiosity assuaged, they would have no reason to investigate any further.

Luna sat on one half of the sofa and pulled their lunch out of the bags, but before she could open the bottles of ginger beer, Jen levitated them out of her hands. The black-haired witch vanished the steel caps with a flick of her fingers, a second enlarging and molding the two remaining acorns into mugs, and poured the drinks. When Luna held out her hand for her own, Jen sent her a smug smirk and a wink before blowing over the tops of the cups, and steam rose as the drinks were warmed to a comfortable temperature.

"If this is what you do on our first date," the blonde commented in a dry voice as she wrapped her fingers around her mug, "I had better start preparing myself now for whatever you have planned for our anniversary."

She grinned wickedly. "Oh, I'd probably do something simple and classic. Bed of roses, soft music, stolen bottle of champagne, sexy little negligée…"

"Jen!" Luna looked away, face burning. "Why do you always have to say things like that?"

Reaching over with her free hand, she placed two fingers against Luna's chin and turned the blonde's face toward her again. "Because you're cute when you blush." A shy smile appeared on Luna's lips, and Jen leaned in to give her a soft kiss. She pulled back, and the smile on her own face faded a touch. "And also because I am a sexual creature. I find you extremely attractive"—the hand holding Luna's head slipped around her neck, down her back, and found its way to her far hip—"and that means there are times I want nothing more than to drag you into my bed and do wicked things to your body."

"I… I know that, but…"

"I know you're not ready for that step yet, Luna, but you asked and I felt you deserved an honest answer. I'm not trying to push you into doing anything you don't want to do." Even though she really, really wanted to. Every day for a week after the younger girl turned her advances away, she had to content herself with jilling off, but that bit of self-gratification had done little to calm the fire burning in her loins. If all her dates with Luna left her feeling the same way that night had, she might have to throw caution to the winds and start luring other students into amorous dalliances and wiping their memories afterwards, despite the risks such a course of action posed.

She wouldn't be able to pursue this slow buildup in her relationship with Luna if she was going mad with sexual frustration, after all.

Her girlfriend sighed at that and scooted over on the cushion to snuggle into her side, and Jen bent her neck to press a gentle peck on the crown of Luna's head. She would admit there had been days when she wondered if the romantic but nonsexual adventure she was attempting was worth the stress and worn-out fingers it was giving her, but right now? Right now she was leaning toward a definite  _'yes'_.

* * *

**Because Vector is such a blank slate in canon, for this series I have somewhat based her off of my seventh-grade math teacher, who was also very young for her position and a pretty cool teacher overall.**

**Also, writing a cute date scene is** _**hard** _ **. Borderline sexual is so much easier.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	33. Pride Goeth

**About Vector pairing Jen and Hermione:**  Remember how I said in the AN that I was basing Vector's attitude off a teacher I had in middle school? Well, while I was in her class, I had a problem with another student and  _may_  have said a few things in anger that, looking back, were ill-advised – don't look at me like that, he was an asshole – and her response was to put us together for the next project we had. When I asked her about why she had done that, the answer she gave me was basically what Vector told Hermione.

 **Lunaris-wind:**  Heh. He he he. Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Sure, you just keep hoping for that.

**Yes, yes, this chapter is fairly short, but we're at a part of the story that just has a some excellent natural stopping points. You'll see what I mean.**

**Disclaimer:**  When Yaxley grabbed Hermione's arm and followed her, Harry, and Ron to Grimmauld Place after they infiltrated the Ministry, did they abandon the house even though he wasn't one of the Secret Keepers and so wouldn't have been able to lead the Death Eaters to their location? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 33  
** **Pride Goeth**

A rap of his gavel, and Dumbledore turned to James. "I believe you have a motion to put forth, Lord Potter."

"Thank you, Chief Warlock."

Jen narrowed her eyes as the younger wizard stood. She did not have the Sight – put little stock in divination as a whole, in fact – but she was getting a very bad feeling about this. There was only one bill she had heard he was going to propose, but surely this could not be it. That was just a trick by Lily Potter to get her to trust the older witch.

Then Lord Pickering stood as well, and she muttered, "Oh, the Baron strike them all dead."

"For the past forty years, the use of dark magic on other beings has, for good and obvious reasons, progressively been prohibited, leading to a number of arrests of individuals who see little value in the well-being of others," James said in a booming voice. His eyes roved over the assembled Dark Houses, nearly all of whom had protested the restrictions placed on the Dark Arts at one time or another, and even flickered toward a few of the Neutral Houses who were similarly sympathetic. "However, there is a major loophole that no one has yet to consider. The Dark Arts are not just the Unforgivables or dark rituals; there are a number of enchantments that have been created to allow unscrupulous characters to evade the law, turning ordinary objects into magical artifacts that have no place in a civilized society.

"What reason is there for quills that force their holder to murder his wife and children?" the wizard suddenly demanded. "Or mirrors that twist and distort a passerby's viewpoint to make them easier to enthrall? Or spectacles that allow their wearer to break into others' minds and plunder their every secret and hidden fear?" He shook his head. "And yet these very items can be found even though, if those spells were not enchantments but curses, the casters would face serious criminal charges."

"But we already have laws preventing the making and sale of such items!" protested Lady Bulstrode.

Pickering nodded. "You are correct, but there are some artifacts that are yet permitted to exits, specifically those that are also registered as family heirlooms."

The chamber grew deathly still at that.

"Tradition is important," Pickering allowed, "but at a certain point we have to stop and ask ourselves whether we are keeping traditions because they are inherently worth preserving or just because they are customs our predecessors followed. This is an enlightened time, my Lords and Ladies, a time to move forwards and concern ourselves with how things  _should_  be, not how they once were."

"It is therefore our proposal that the special protections afforded to heirlooms be revoked," James continued. "Obviously, this is not a quest against all relics, but those whose sole purpose is to harm others have no place in a peaceful society."

"Peaceful?" Lord Wallace Davis, Tracey's grandfather, cut in with a mocking sneer. "You do remember that we are currently at war with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, do you not? And you think now is the proper time to try taking away the weapons that have been passed down our bloodlines for generations, just to soothe your delicate sensibilities?"

Sirius hummed thoughtfully in the seat next to Jen. "That's something we didn't expect." Before she could ask him to elaborate, he turned his head to the side and gave someone a single slow nod.

"And just who would be the ones classifying our family heirlooms as 'dark' or not?" demanded Lord Fitzpatrick, the elderly Irish wizard slowly pushing himself up from his chair. "You say that your purpose is to make sure our belongings are safe, and yet there are many, many enchantments that can be safe or dangerous as the circumstances dictate. Do you have any plans for how to handle such difficult cases?"

James blustered, "Of course we do—"

"I find myself in agreement with Lord Fitzpatrick," Sirius shouted, a small amplification charm allowing him to talk over James. "And Pickering, don't think we don't see what you're doing. I may not have been a recognized member of this body three years ago, but I recall reading a bill you put forward that would ban essentially all secondary foci. If you would be the one deciding what is allowed and what isn't, how can we be sure that you aren't using this motion as an opportunity to do that exact thing on the sly?"

"But I'm not— That isn't—"

Pickering's explanations were drowned out by the indignant shouting of other Houses, and Sirius sat back, a self-satisfied smile on his face.

Jen quirked an eyebrow at her Head of House, a sudden suspicion congealing into a hard mass in her gut. "You had a plan for this, didn't you?" she whispered.

"Absolutely. If Fitzpatrick and I weren't enough to cause an uproar, there were some others ready to make a fuss about this. Knowing about the bill two months in advance gave us plenty of time to set everything up." He turned to her, a stern frown taking over his features, and a jab of his wand raised a privacy charm around them. "Now just imagine how different things would have been if this had been a surprise."

"How was I supposed to know that she was telling the truth?" she retorted as she crossed her arms and twisted her head away from him. Yes, Lily Potter had warned her about this very proposal, but after all the ways the two male Potters had tried to drag her back to their accursed family, she had a good excuse for suspecting it to be nothing more than yet another ruse.

It was for that reason that she had not originally planned to say anything about her chat with the older witch to the rest of the family, but then Sirius had remarked on New Year's Eve that he had seen them talking and asked what it was about. The chewing-out she received from him and Cissy for dismissing the conversation out of hand had been incredibly severe, almost worthy of an epic poem, and not only were they no longer so confident about her political acumen as they once had been, they had also made her late for her meeting with Tracey to perform the familiar ritual on Vesta.

Unfortunately, Sirius did not seem to think that she had completely learned her lesson, for he continued, "It doesn't matter whether you thought she was lying or not. It was plausible enough that you had no reason not to do a little digging or preparing in case she was being honest. What is the only bad contingency plan?"

"The one you need but don't have," she answered with a sigh.

"Exactly."

Jen grumbled a bit but ultimately kept herself from making a comment. That little axiom was something Cissy and Andi had both told her time and time again, and before today, she would have said that she already understood it completely. Apparently not, and Sirius being the one to chastise her on the subject somehow just made it dig even further under her skin.

 _Although, speaking of him being the one to do something_ … "Sirius? Why are you opposed to this bill?" He glanced at her, question obvious in his eyes, and she elaborated, "We all know that you and Dora are a lot more Light than Aunt Cissy and I are. I would have thought you'd be all for the prohibition of dark enchantments."

He nodded, but Jen could not help but notice the faintest bit of hesitation in the gesture. "If that were all it was, then yes, I'd probably be supporting James and Pickering. It's the second part of the bill that disturbs me." A single, lonely chuckle escaped. "Maybe I'm just not as Light as I used to be, but I see no problem with using a focus other than a wand to cast magic. It's an older style of casting, yes, but that doesn't make it inherently bad, nor are secondary foci any more dangerous than a wand so long as their wielder knows what he's doing. If that weren't enough all on its own, I keep remembering how terrified I was when you told me that the boys and girls who attacked you in the Shrieking Shack took your wand away, even with you standing right there in perfect health. You don't need a wand, I know, but I can't help but imagine how that would have ended if the lie you've told the world were true. Without another way of using magic, you would have been trapped with ten people who hated you and wanted you dead, and neither you nor I could have done anything to stop them. I wouldn't wish that fear on anyone." He stopped and thought for a moment. "It's funny, really. The Light Houses are perfectly fine with people of any descent being able to use magic, but at the same time they believe that magic should only come out of a wand, that other foci are simply relics of a bygone age best left in the mists of history.

"Not to mention, they are a very convenient explanation for whenever you forget to use your wand," he added after a moment.

"Yes, far be it from a fifteen-year-old witch, especially the publicly outed daughter of Bellatrix Lestrange, to master wandless magic," she agreed with a displeased nod. Wandless magic itself was not considered a Dark Art, but the ability to manipulate reality with will alone was limited to the most powerful wizards and witches. She had yet to reach her majority, so for her to be capable of that already would raise some very serious questions that she just was not willing to answer at the moment. There was also the small matter that despite wandless magic not being illegal in and of itself, the majority of wizards and witches who did showcase it went on to become Dark Lords and Ladies; with enough rituals to increase one's magical power artificially, anyone was capable of wandless magic, regardless of their inborn strength.

Her age and her professed parentage would almost certainly lead the public to believing that she had done just that.

"People always fear what they don't understand," he said sadly, "and unfortunately, they also tend not to put in the effort to understand when there's another, easier answer being handed to them."

She tilted her head. "That's a very cynical statement. I don't disagree, but I'm surprised you would say something like that."

"I think I've spent to much time with Narcissa," Sirius said with a laugh, and then his tone turned knowing. "Hopefully this will also teach you not to lose your temper over every little thing. All anger does is keep you from making rational decisions."

"We aren't talking about me ignoring Potter's warnings anymore, are we?"

"No, we're not," he said. "I heard all about your little spat with Danny's two friends. I don't know what went through your head that made you think that was a good idea, but you just made yourself several enemies. I had almost convinced a few of the more Neutral-leaning Light Houses that we are different from how this House used to be under Arcturus and before him when news of that started spreading around, and as soon as they heard about it, they distanced themselves again."

Jen frowned and asked, "How did they even know about it, though? For that matter, how did you find out?"

"Well, I heard it from Narcissa, but as for her… If I remember correctly, she heard about it from Moira Tattings, who heard it from Madam Carey, who heard it from… someone, and on and on we go until we get to Lady Parkinson hearing about it from her daughter. I guess the grapevine spread further and further until everyone with even the flimsiest reason to know knew about it." Sirius took in her irritated glare and prompted her, "Do you recall the little chat we had right after the  _Prophet_  published news about you being Bellatrix's daughter, the one when I said that all Blacks have a bad habit of jumping straight to the most violent solution to our problems? This right here is the perfect example of that."

Jen huffed and crossed her arms, pointedly not looking at him. "I already told you that I took Luna under our aegis last year. I was honor-bound to retaliate with extreme prejudice when Weasley mocked her like he did."

"And do you do the same thing  _every_  time someone insults her?" was his immediate question. She sat silently, and after another second he looked back at the arguing Wizengamot around them. "I didn't think so. Don't try to lie to me about this; we both know that this wasn't political or due to honor. It was personal. He mocked your girlfriend, you got mad, and then you chose to get revenge in the most immediate and humiliating way you could. I bet family honor only crossed your mind when you decided to think up some justification for your actions."

"So what's going to happen now? Are you going to tell me I have to apologize?" she asked in an voice of pure acid.

"No, I'm not. Mostly because I don't think it would do any good. I know Arthur and Molly Weasley from the Order, and while he doesn't hold grudges, she won't accept your apologies for messing with one of her children no matter what it is. But you do need to be more careful," he added as he pulled down the privacy charm. "You never know when your temper is going to turn someone into a very dangerous enemy."

* * *

"She had better have a good reason for wanting to do this today," Jen grumbled as she entered the near-deserted library. The room's state was no great surprise; it was the seventeenth of February, only a few days after Valentine's, and the third Saturday of the month. That meant everyone was off at Hogsmeade, but not her. She had to meet with her Arithmancy project partner.

She spotted Granger easily – the Lion's unkempt mane of brown hair would have stood out even if the table she sat at was one of only five currently occupied – and stormed over. Her satchel made a solid  _thud_  when it hit the wooden table. Granger looked up, eyes narrowed in irritation and hate of her own, and snapped, "You're late."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I just lost track of time thinking to myself how much I hate having to disappoint my date because I can't make it to Hogsmeade today and instead have to spend it here with someone I really don't like." Shaking her head to flip some hair out of her face, she continued in a less mocking voice, "Maybe if you hadn't made us wait until February to decide what our project is going to be, we wouldn't have this problem. The rest of the class has already submitted their proposals."

The glare Granger shot at her might have been able to quail the purportedly brave Lions, but it did nothing to her. Finally, the other witch said, "I realize that it took me a while. I was looking for what the best possible project topic would be before we wrote up our proposal. You might enjoy mediocrity enough to pick the first idea that comes to mind, but I want  _my_  project to be truly impressive."

"You do know picking something much more complicated isn't going to get you extra points or make Vector like you, right?" Jen asked with a roll of her eyes. "But fine. What  _'truly impressive'_  spell have you decided upon for us to do?"

"The Fidelius Charm."

Jen felt her eyebrows rise almost against her will, but she was too busy considering the proposal before her to bother with them.  _The Fidelius, huh? Well, Granger doesn't do things by half, I'll give her that much. Can we really finish it off in only a few months, though; that's the real question_. "I'm listening."

Granger sighed and shook her head. "The Fidelius Charm is a defensive spell that—"

"I'm well aware of what it  _is_. What, other than its sheer difficulty, is the reason you want us to tackle a project this big in the limited time we have?"

"Besides the challenge? Two things. First, it's important. Professor Dumbledore put several of the Order members' homes under the Fidelius, but we still don't know how it works. That's a dangerous state of affairs; what if there is a major, crippling flaw in it that we don't know about, and You-Know-Who stumbles upon it? He already burned down your… the Potters' house"—Jen forced herself not to smirk at how Granger had changed what she was going to say, difficult though it was—"and if he knows any other weaknesses of the spell, we need to know them, too.

"Second, the Fidelius Charm is convenient for us." Granger spun a roll of parchment around and slid it toward Jen. "Because the spell is so rarely used, no one really pays much attention to it, but according to the book I was referencing, there are currently two different schools of thought for how it works, both of which have been worked out somewhat. The first and slightly more accepted theory is that the Fidelius works a bit like Unplottability or Space-Extension Charms, where the surrounding space is 'ballooned' out to contain the house, and is only accessible to those who know the Secret. The second is that the actual space is unaffected and that the Fidelius is all mental; it is clearly visible, but no one who isn't keyed into the spell is able to pay attention to it."

Jen nodded. "I think I see where you're going with this. Since there are two possible mechanisms, we can each work on one of them and then just duplicate the other's calculations in our own handwriting. Vector will suspect that we split the load up instead of working together, but there's no proof of that, and even if there were, we would have a valid reason for doing so."

"Exactly," Granger said with a sharp nod of her head. "I'll take the spatial warping formula; it sounds more right to me than the other." She narrowed her eyes at Jen and added, "Unless you think you aren't capable of working on the other, in which case I'm willing to switch."

The black-haired witch merely smirked. "First it was an ambitious project, then it was thinking a way around the rules, and now you're trying to manipulate me. That's a very Slytherin attitude you have there." The brunette's face reddened while a scowl replaced her mocking smile, and she rolled her eyes in exasperation. "That was what we normal people call a  _'compliment'_ , Granger. If you can't even tell the difference between a compliment and an insult, you need serious help."

She unrolled the bit of parchment the fuming witch had given her and glanced over the fragment of arithmantic formula hastily written upon it. Which equation she worked on was immaterial to her, and even if she did care, this would have been the one she chose, anyway. Between compulsion charms, which she knew were fully defined, and Muggle-Repelling and Notice-Me-Not Charms, she had a good foundation to start working from. If need be, she could also find the arithmancy for the enslavement curse she had used on Skeeter all those months ago for further comparison. Provided she did not run into any unforeseen complications, she expected that she could get her part of the project finished in exchange for little more than a month's free time.

"Is that all you wanted for us to discuss?" she asked, and Granger nodded absently, nose already shoved into a book. Jen tucked the parchment into her satchel and stood up from the table. She actually had enough time to drop her bag back off at the Ravenclaw Tower and get to Hogsmeade without losing too much of her time out with her friends.

* * *

A knock on the door, and Luna asked, "Jen? Are you in there?"

No answer came from within the abandoned classroom the purple-eyed witch had claimed as her lab and lounge. She frowned and toyed with the charm bracelet on her wrist, the heart Jen had given her on Valentine's Day now dangling alongside the book, shield, and puppy. She knew additional Wizengamot sessions were occasionally called on the fourth Saturday of the month, but Jen had not mentioned having to leave school today, and even if she had, it was already half past twelve, and she had always been back by now.

 _Where is she?_ , she wondered, giving the knob a quick twist. Locked tight. All the work she had done with the house-elves arranging their private lunch was going to go to waste if she couldn't find her girlfriend soon!

With a sigh, she crossed her eyes until a brown splotch crept in from the right. She blinked a few times to clear her vision and then looked down at the Whibblestumper. "Fetch."

The nine-legged jackal whined and looked away. After a moment, it raised its mismatched purple and green eyes to meet Luna's silver, and she crossed her arms. This was strange, indeed; she admittedly had not had much experience with Whibblestumpers before last year, the creatures being born and growing as friendships did, but she had never seen one act like this. She put a little steel in her voice and ordered again, " _Fetch_ ," and though it whimpered again, it reluctantly slunk down the hallway.

Luna only had to climb one flight of stairs before the creature stopped in front of an unremarkable wooden door. She reached out for the knob, but the canine suddenly butted its head into her thigh.

"What has gotten into you?" she asked gently, kneeling to run her hands over its brown fur. This particular Whibblestumper was always easy to distinguish from its brethren; not only did it have two differently colored eyes, it was also the only one to have a crosshatching of white stripes decorating its back, though Tracey's had a few patches on its back, too. "Don't worry. If she's in the middle of something, I'll be quiet so I won't disturb her, okay?" The creature did not seem comforted by that, but it did not stop her as she cast  _Alohamora_  on the door and slowly pushed it open.

She immediately wished she hadn't.

Several seconds she spent just staring at the sight before her, and then she closed the door again. The creature clamped its jaws onto the hem of her robe, trying its best to keep her there, but she tugged the cloth out of its mouth and started walking away, slowly at first but going faster and faster until she was running down the hallway. Jen's Whibblestumper yipped at her and tried to keep up, but its quickly withering body caused it to fall behind after only a couple of yards. Her feet pounded on the stone floor, and she payed no attention to where she was going or what was happening around her until she dived onto her bed in the Ravenclaw dorms, tears streaming down her cheeks and staining the comforter.

"Luna! What's wrong?" Padma asked. A hand came to rest on her shoulder, and any scraps of self-control she had left fell apart. Padma pulled her up and held her, and another person – undoubtedly Morag – wrapped her in a hug from behind.

Haltingly, uncertainly, she told them what she had witnessed through her sobs. Of black hair mussed up and drenched in sweat. Of pale and tan skin pressed against each other. Of cries and screams and sighs. When she was done, Morag growled and ran a hand through her hair. "It'll be all right, Luna. Things will get better. And she's got a lot to answer for."

Padma nodded at that, but their words gave Luna little comfort. She should have payed attention when the Whibblestumper didn't want to guide her. People always said that ignorance was bliss, and before today she had thought that to be a short-sighted opinion. Now she understood. This truth was so painful that it tore her heart in twain, and given the chance to undo the last few minutes, she would prefer never to learn of what was happening elsewhere in the castle, of professions and acts of love that in the end were worth nothing, of an entire relationship that was based on lies.

Of how Jen was cheating on her with Katie Bell.

* * *

**Don't run off to grab your torches and pitchforks just yet, guys! Luna walking in on Jen and someone else after they got together was always part of the plan, and it's been in my notes since shortly after I started** _**Princess of the Blacks** _ **(even if it took a while to get here). It's necessary to help Jen tamp down some of her rampant ego.**

**The Fidelius Charm is one of the many, many aspects of canon that makes me shake my head in disappointment; it's an essential part of the plot, and yet we never learn how it is actually supposed to work. The second scene was mostly to elaborate on the two theories I have about the possible mechanics, though I lean more toward spatial warping, personally.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	34. Paying the Piper

**Ohsnapitssam:**  Jen wants to keep her Patronus project quiet, if only for fear that she might accidentally reveal why she wants to understand that spell. As for Voldie knowing when a Horcrux is destroyed, it depends on what you consider canon. He felt Harry and co. destroying them in the movie version of  _Deathly Hallows_  (though not  _Half-Blood Prince_ , for some reason), but in the books, which I personally consider true canon with only rare exceptions, he had no idea anyone else even knew about them until after they broke into Gringotts.

**This chapter was** _**exhausting** _ **to write. Normally I'm a fan of mood whiplash, but this might be a little excessive. Hopefully next chapter will be better… Wait, it starts with a Lily scene. Never mind.**

**Oh, and the first chapter of** _**Deal with a Devil** _ **is now up, for anyone who didn't know.**

**Disclaimer:**  Was Ginny praised for thinking that Harry "wouldn't be happy unless [he was] hunting Voldemort", even though that shows a horrible misunderstanding of his motivations (i.e., a sense of obligation rather than any kind of "heroic drive")? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 34  
** **Paying the Piper**

The black-haired witch slammed heavily into the stone floor, and Filius lowered his wand with a frown. This was the third bout of their weekly dueling lesson, but it was obvious that Miss Black's attention was elsewhere right now. "That's enough for today," he said, the girl giving up on her attempt to push herself to her feet and instead just lying where she landed. "As it is clear that you're not in the proper mindset for fighting, why don't you tell me what has you so preoccupied?"

"It's nothing, Professor," she muttered, rolling over to stare up at the ceiling. "Just a personal matter. Nothing you can help with."

He raised an eyebrow at the fatigued tone of her reply. That told him one thing, at least; this was not some minor issue that had begun today. "Perhaps, but I have found that venting, even to someone who can't do anything to fix it, can do wonders. Sometimes all you need is to think your problem out aloud."

His suggestion caught her off-guard, and she hesitated a moment before turning her head to face him. "And yet there are some things I would not feel comfortable telling a professor. If, hypothetically, what I did involved going against a school policy – but not necessarily a rule – I would still not want to be subject to a half-hour scolding," she finally said.

"As both the head of Ravenclaw house and a professor, there are times I have to decide which of my obligations takes priority," he replied, choosing his words carefully. "In this case, while the professor in me would want to make sure you understand that the school's rules and policies are in place for a good reason, a head of house sometimes has to overlook a few broken rules to help his charges where he as a teacher cannot. You are the only one who knows what is going on, so you are the only one who can guess whether this needs to be a Charms professor or head of Ravenclaw discussion."

She considered his answer without speaking for a few moments, and he withheld his sigh of relief. He knew he had not been the most approachable head of house for the last few years, but ever since this very student had revealed the underhanded dealings going on right under his nose, he had done what he could to repair his relationship with his house. Several of the younger years, and even a few older students, had finally started coming to him, tentatively at first but soon gaining more confidence that they could trust him, but Miss Black had not.

It was a rather regrettable situation, and one he wanted to resolve. Not only was she a prefect and therefore someone he relied on to keep order in his house when he was not there, he could easily see that she would be the one leading the Ravenclaws in her seventh year, or perhaps even as early as next year. Whenever that came to pass, though, he wanted to be sure that she trusted him, something he knew was not the case now. Oh, she trusted him as a professor and as a tutor, but as someone she could come to when she needed advice of a personal nature? Their relationship was nowhere near that close, and Filius knew that with someone as reserved and emotionally compartmentalized as she was, gaining that degree of trust would be a long-term project.

Thankfully, her current dilemma, whatever it was, would serve well in getting her to open up a little more.

The witch finally nodded, unaware of his ulterior – though entirely beneficent! – motives. "I suppose it can't hurt. Luna somehow cut through my avoidance spell and walked in on me while I was having sex, and now she's upset and won't even talk to me. Additionally, all our friends except Tracey are mad at me for hurting her, though I suspect the only reason Tracey didn't join them is that she's much closer to me than she is to Luna."

Filius blinked in surprise; he had no clue what he expected to come out of her mouth, but it certainly wasn't that. It did explain her reticence, though, as carnal relations between students was something the staff frowned upon and did their best to discourage. It was also, unfortunately, something they knew still happened behind their backs, and not all members of the faculty were quite as diligent in trying to prevent it as they could be. Those mixed signals were only compounded by Poppy handing out contraceptive potions upon request and without recording names; the mediwitch's defense boiled down to  _'It's better if they let me know what's going on and get a potion than the girl getting pregnant, or worse, trying to brew the potion on her own and accidentally poisoning herself'_ , which was… actually a rather good reason, all things considered.

"I can see why that would upset her," he commented, puzzling over the girl's tone. Most of the time, people who admitted to being unfaithful in a relationship were not nearly so cavalier as she had been. Perhaps she was wielding it for shock value, but that would be out of character for her.

Her grumble pulled him from his musings. "That makes one of us."

"Miss Black, do you honestly not understand why your girlfriend might be distressed that you were cheating on her?"

"No, I don't!" She pushed her torso off the floor with her arms and finally turned her head to face him fully. "And I certainly don't know why everyone keeps accusing me of cheating on her. I wasn't keeping a second girlfriend on the side. I wasn't sneaking around arranging secret rendezvous. We were shagging; that's it. It's not nearly as big a deal as they're making it out to be."

Filius licked his lips to give himself time to put his thoughts in order. They were getting to the crux of the issue, he felt, but he still was unsure exactly what was going on in her head. It seemed like a fairly simple situation to him, and he suspected that it was Miss Black approaching the issue from an unusual perspective that was the cause of most of her confusion. Conjuring a short stool under him and forcing his discomfort aside, he said, "Help me understand, please. What makes having sex with another witch and being in a secret relationship so different in your mind?"

"How could they be the same? Our relationship is…" She trailed off for a moment, and he had to hide the smile that appeared when he saw the bright red blush spreading across her pale cheeks. How funny it was that same girl who had mentioned her sexual exploits so clinically could be embarrassed when talking about love! "It's emotional. It's enjoying our time together and sharing kisses and hugs and making each other laugh and— And I sound like an idiot when I put it like that," she finished with a grimace.

"No, you sound like a young woman in love," he countered gently, "though some would say that love makes fools out of us all, no matter how old we are. If that is what a relationship is, then how do you view sex?"

She waved her hand dismissively. "Sex is physical. The only 'emotion', if you want to call it such, is lust, and that doesn't even have to be involved. All sex is for is getting physical pleasure. It's meaningless. That's why the way everyone is reacting makes no sense; it isn't like I really hurt anyone!"

Clicking his pointed fingernails together, he tried to hide his sudden flash of unease. Now that he was paying attention to what she was saying rather than his own feelings on the subject, there was something  _off_  about this conversation. When she was describing her relationship, Miss Black had sounded like a normal teenager, but this? This did not resemble that in the slightest. Her voice had lost the faint tentativeness that she had earlier, and instead it sounded jaded and cynical. He might expect a woman three times her age to form such an opinion, but she should not have the sheer experience necessary to come to that conclusion. Not unless… "Miss Black? I know this is none of my business, but how long have you been sexually active?"

The young witch hesitated for a moment, just long enough for his worry to spike again, before she answered, "I was twelve my first time. Puberty, well, it got to me early." With a shrug, she pasted a smile on her face. "Can't say I exactly mind, though. Developing so soon was more enjoyable than it wasn't."

"Twelve," he repeated with some disbelief. The way she had paused made him believe that it was actually earlier than that, but without evidence, there was no way voicing that doubt would benefit either of them.

 _And I bet she has had intercourse quite often since then, too_. That actually was not as big a shock as it might be were she part of some other family, now that he thought about it a little more. Sirius Black had been caught trying to peek into the girls' half of the Gryffindor Quidditch team's locker room when he was a second-year, and even if only half of his rumored liaisons actually took place, it would still make him one of the most promiscuous students Filius had ever had. Sadly, he was not far ahead of  _everyone_  else; his younger brother Regulus, after all, had been much the same way, though admittedly more discreet. Ironically, the Black whose openness in regard to her nocturnal activities most closely matched Sirius's was actually Bellatrix. Andromeda, while far more demure than her older sister in other matters, had not been too far behind in terms of her number of partners. Then there were those horrible rumors that had bounced around about Narcissa's preferences, though they had been proven unfounded once she was happily betrothed to Lucius Malfoy. And who could forget Nymphadora Tonks, who had had the bad luck to be found  _in flagrante delicto_  by Pomona not once but several times per year once she hit fourteen?

"How is the world not drowning in Blacks when they screw around like rabbits?" he muttered to himself.

She shrugged. "We have a disproportionate number of miscarriages and stillbirths. Aunt Andi once told me that she's been pregnant eleven or twelve times, but Dora's the only one who survived to term."

He flushed; he had not meant to say that loud enough for her to hear! Clearing his throat, he explained, "While I think I see your point, the issue here is that you need to look at this from Miss Lovegood's perspective. Most people, whether they are teenagers fumbling around on their first time or elderly with children and grandchildren, consider sex to be something special. That is why she is so upset with you; the way she sees it, walking in on you with… whomever it was, was the same as if she had caught you sharing a more emotional moment." She did not look convinced, so he prodded, "Unless you can think of a better explanation?"

"No, I can't. That doesn't mean it makes any more sense."

"Then I suppose the real question is, does it have to make sense to you for it to be true?" The girl shook her head. "I don't think so, either. What matters is that seeing you in that position has caused your girlfriend pain, and she considers you to be at fault. I see two possible choices you can make now that this has all happened: one, you do nothing and wait for tempers to cool. It is the easier option, but it is unlikely that your relationship will survive it."

She scowled. "And the second?"

"The second is that you two sit down and hash everything out now. Perhaps she will listen to your reasoning and accept that there is a conflict between your mindsets, but more likely you will have to apologize unless you want things to further deteriorate."

"Apologize," she echoed. For a moment he was sure she would refuse to apologize for something she saw as not being her fault, but then she sighed. "I suppose. I  _am_  sorry that she felt hurt by my actions, regardless of if they were actually wrong."

"I really hope you don't phrase it that way when you speak to her," he said with a wince. There was no way things could end well if that was how she chose to say it.

"I have a little more intelligence than that, Professor," she shot back with a roll of her eyes. Her next words were in a softer voice. "I'll say whatever I need to if it will make things go back to normal."

Filius sadly shook his head. "Going  _'back to normal'_  is probably impossible." She stared at him, and he explained, "This kind of issue is not something that will be forgotten easily, if it is at all. If you work hard at it, your relationship may be extremely similar, but any fight of this magnitude is going to leave scars."

"Great. And of course, that plan is complicated by the fact that she won't speak to me." She sighed and added, "She even moved all her belongings out of our dorm and is rooming with Padma and Morag."

"I can't help you with that, but I'm sure you will figure out some way of convincing her to discuss this. If you really want to fix your relationship, you'll have to."

* * *

Luna sighed as she entered her – no, this was still Padma and Morag's dorm. They were nice enough to let her stay, even conjuring a cot for her, but her dorm was on the other side of the landing. She could not go back to it, though, not when that required having to face Jen again.

Her bag slid down her arm to the floor at the foot of her bed, and she sat down heavily on the mattress. Over the past few days, Jen had tried several times to get her attention, but their friends had put the talent for running interference they had developed keeping the Potters away from Jen to instead keep Jen from her. Today, though, the black-haired witch had seemed withdrawn, not even meeting her eyes from across the room. A small, oft-neglected part of Luna rejoiced that her girlfriend – ex-girlfriend? – was finally coming to realize how hurt and upset she was, but the rest of her just wanted this whole thing to be over. She had never been one to hold a grudge, and staying this mad at the first person to befriend her since she entered Hogwarts, the girl she was in love with, was tiring in a way she just could not describe.

Rubbing the dark circles that had started forming around her eyes, she looked over at the bookshelf holding all their textbooks only to frown. Her books were gone.

She glanced around the room with a more observant eye. Everything else looked to be in its proper place still, and a quick check of her trunk showed that her clothes were right where she left them. Was this a sign that, now that she was on the outs with her protector, the bullies who had made her time at this school a living hell were going to start their 'pranks' up again? A glint of gold from one shelf caught her attention, and she slowly walked over to investigate. It was her charm bracelet, the only thing she had left behind in her dorm, and under it was a sheet of parchment that read simply,  _'We need to talk'_.

 _That explains why she wasn't in Charms class earlier_ , Luna thought, her lips pursing as she trembled, and another wave of anger and sorrow washed over her. This was not what she wanted to do right now, but it sounded like Jen was not going to give her any choice in the matter, not that  _that_  was too much of a surprise. Amidst her other bad qualities, Jen was also a major control freak. She could borrow one of her friends' books for her homework, but knowing Jen, that would only cause the witch to escalate in her attempts.

Taking a deep breath, she stomped out of the room and across the landing to their dorm. The door was unlocked, so her shove flung it open and bounced it hard against the wall. "Where did you put my things?" she demanded, then she winced at how her voice warbled.

Jen set down the teacup she had been toying with; another cup and a pot sat on the table, none of them things Luna recognized. Conjured, then, or maybe borrowed from the Blacks' other belongings. "Over there," she answered, pointing at the desk where they were all in a neat stack. The blonde moved to walk over to them, and the older girl glanced down and added, "I'm sorry I had to resort to this. I just couldn't think of any other way to get you to come here and talk."

Luna bit her lip and turned her gaze away. She was supposed to be mad, but that was a hard emotion to keep up with Jen sitting there looking like a kicked puppy! "What if I don't want to talk to you?"

"Then go ahead and take your books back. I won't stop you, and I won't do anything to force you here again."

Looking back and forth between Jen and her textbooks, she eventually jerked the other chair out from under the table and sat. She glared at the other girl and asked, "Why?"

"That, I believe, is a more complicated answer than either of us would expect," Jen said, flicking a finger. Behind her, Luna heard the door click as it closed. "First, I want to apologize. It was never, ever my intent to hurt you, and—"

"Jen, just… stop," she snapped, a few tears already itching in her eyes. "Don't talk around this or try to tie everything up in knots. Just, for once, tell me the truth."

Jen jerked back as if Luna had slapped her, but she quickly rallied. "Very well. The truth is that I didn't realize you would have a problem with what I did."

The silence grew stifling, and the blonde just stared at the girl before her in disbelief. "You didn't think I would have a problem with it?  _You didn't think I would have a problem with it?!"_  she shouted back in shocked anger. It may not be a lie, exactly, but spending a year and a half around Jen and Tracey had slowly taught her to read between the lines and hear what was not being said. This one was obvious. "Why wouldn't I have a problem with it? Unless what you really thought was that I wouldn't find out about it?"

"No, that's not it at all," Jen replied. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "I didn't tell you about it, no, but it wasn't because I was hiding it. I just thought you wouldn't be interested in hearing about it, so there was no reason to bring it up."

"Stop lying to me!"

"I'm not!" she shouted back. Her purple eyes flashed with suppressed fury, and for a moment Luna was truly afraid of what Jen might do to her. That moment passed, though, and she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. "I'm not lying, Luna. I don't know what I have to do to convince you of that."

 _Maybe don't say something so ridiculous!_  Taking a few relaxing breaths of her own, the blonde looked away and tried to examine this from a different angle.  _All right, what if she actually is telling the truth? If she really didn't mean to hurt me and really didn't expect it to be a problem? It's unlikely, but…_  "Why didn't you think I would take issue with finding out that you were cheating on me?"

Jen sighed. "That's the complicated part. I thought it was fine because, if our positions were reversed, I wouldn't have considered it to be cheating. It was a surprise to me that you did."

 _She wouldn't have considered it cheating? How could it not be?!_  "You expect me to believe that if I was out having sex with some other witch, you would just smile and nod and shut the door? You wouldn't care at all?"

"More or less." Giving her a weak smile, Jen added, "Though rather than just walk away, I think I would have asked if I could join in first."

Luna had to fight hard not to either sigh or laugh. Yes, that was Jen, all right. She had, after all, come right out on their first date and said that she was—

' _And also because I am a sexual creature…'_

Her silver eyes grew wide, and the glare she turned on Jen surprised the older girl enough that she said in a tentative voice, "Luna?"

"This whole thing… It was all because I said I wouldn't sleep with you, wasn't it?"

A wince swept over Jen's face, quick but not quick enough to be missed. Obviously that was not something she was supposed to figure out. "Our dates left me rather… frustrated. It was the best way I could think of to ensure that I didn't push you farther than you were ready for."

She did not stop the tears from sliding down her cheeks this time. "So because you couldn't get me to put out, you moved on to someone who would? What were you going to do, wait a couple of weeks and then break up with me?!"

"When you put it like that, it sounds really, really bad," Jen commented with a sigh. "But no, I wasn't going to break up with you. Bell and I were a one-time thing. It didn't mean anything."

She squeezed her eyes shut and scowled. "But it meant more than our relationship did, is that it?"

"That's not what I said, and you know it."

"No, I don't know it!" Luna stood and clenched her fists, her tears those of both sadness and anger. She should have known it would go like this. "All I know is that you started sleeping around because I wouldn't let you do it with me!"

Jen jumped up as well, and her expression proved that any plans she had for reconciliation had now been thrown away. "Let's get something straight. I've been having sex since long before I ever met you! Did I want to shag you? Yes, I did. But this is not nearly as much about you as you're trying to make it out to be!"

"No, it's all about you, instead," she spat. "You would have been sleeping around even if I had been willing to have sex with you, wouldn't you? That whole thing about not pushing me into anything is just an excuse so you can feel better about it!"

"It's the entire reason I started looking around for other partners! You said you weren't ready for sex, and I accepted that! I wasn't going to force it on you!" Looking away, Jen said in a quiet voice, "Not like how it was forced on me."

Jen might as well have dumped a bucket of ice water on her with that reminder. The flame of her fury guttering out, Luna lowered her head to stare at the table as the puzzle pieces in her mind started rearranging themselves into a far more coherent picture. Wrapped up in her own pain, she had missed that possibility. "You said that your fling with Bell didn't matter, and you've been with lots of other people before. Did… Has it ever meant anything to you?"

"Not really," Jen hesitantly replied. "I talked with Flitwick about this last night, and he said that most people – normal people, I guess – treat sex like it's something special. No one I've ever slept with did. This… thing we have… had…" She sighed and ran her hands through her hair. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do, all right? All I know is that you said you didn't want us to have sex, and I wasn't going to push that. I didn't want to look back and realize that I crossed a line. Tease you, seduce you, drive you crazy enough that you'd rip your clothes off and jump me? Sure, that was all fair game. But I promised myself that when you finally agreed to it, it would be your idea. Sleeping around was just my way of, well, reducing the temptation. A tiger is less likely to hunt a rabbit when her belly's full."

Luna snorted. "You were being so sweet and sad, and I was feeling really guilty for talking to you like I did, and then you had to ruin it with a violent metaphor."

"It was more appropriate than you might think. Orgasm is called  _'the little death'_ , after all," she replied with a tiny smile.

"I'm still mad at you."

"I didn't expect you not to be," came Jen's answer. The older witch at last turned her head to meet Luna's eyes. "Flitwick said things probably wouldn't ever go back to how they were, but if we work at it, we can at least get it close. We have to want it, though." She hesitated for a moment before saying in a thoughtful tone, "He's a lot wiser than I gave him credit for."

Luna smiled, remembering how the tiny professor had called her into his office at least once a week the previous year just to chat until she finally caught on and told him that she forgave him for not realizing how badly she had been bullied until it had been brought to his attention. "We did get lucky with our head of house, didn't we?"

They just watched one another for a minute, and then Luna slowly walked over and Jen wrapped her up in her arms. "I don't like being mad at people," the blonde muttered into Jen's neck, "and I don't like being mad because they did something to hurt me. Please don't do something like that again."

"I'll try my best not to."

"No, don't try. I can't go through this a second time. If we're going to work, it means you can't go around sleeping with every witch or wizard you see. If you're with me, then you're with  _me_ , and I…" She laughed, the sound sad and strangled. "And I don't share. Not this."

"But—" A shake of her head cut Jen off, and then Jen pulled back to look up and down her face. She must have found whatever it was she was looking for, though, for after a second the girl sighed. "All right. If it means that much to you, I won't. It'll be your fault when I wear my fingers down to nubs, though."

 _Because she gets wound up on our dates. Because_ _ **I**_ _wind her up_. She had not paid it much mind when Jen said it, but now that thought made her a little giddy. She knew she was not the prettiest of girls – her eyes were too wide, her face too plain – yet she was the one who drove Jen crazy.  _She does know what she's doing_ , she could not help but think as all the times Jen had teased her passed in front of her eyes, and her thighs rubbed together of their own accord.  _And I have wondered what it's like, especially it has this much of a hold on Jen. If it's good enough that even she would do something this stupid…_

A sharp pain shot up her arm, and she glanced over to find a long black bug, similar to a thin locust, perched on her elbow. It waved its front legs at her before skittering off behind Jen's back.  _An Adolicky. Of all the times for it to sting me, it had to pick now?_ With her mind otherwise occupied, her hands had started gliding up and down Jen's back, and she frowned for a second before shrugging her mental shoulders. Adolicky venom caused people to make fools out of themselves when they were attracted to someone, and Jen had always had a dreadful infestation of them. Maybe that was another reason she had gone along with that horribly ill-planned venture.

 _Now, though, it's my turn to do something foolish. And since I have such a convenient excuse_ … Luna smiled and pulled Jen into a kiss, harsh and possessive, the creature's poison burning hot in her veins. She was as surprised as Jen was when her hands slipped under the hem of the other girl's shirt and ghosted over the soft skin they found.

"Now that's just not fair, Luna," Jen muttered against her lips. "I messed up, but that doesn't give you free rein to say I can't be with other people and then push my buttons mercilessly."

"Even though you said it doesn't mean anything, you still seem to place a lot of importance on this," she answered, snagging her girlfriend's lips again. "What about it is so addicting for you?"

"I can't just tell you that. It wouldn't make sense. I have to show you."

She pulled away, just for an instant, and thought about if she really wanted to take this step. This was what their entire fight had been about; did she want to give in and do this so soon? Jen leaned closer and nuzzled just below her ear, and that made her decision for her. "Please. Show me."

Jen laughed, hot breath making her skin tingle. "As the lady wishes. Let me apologize to you the best way I can."

* * *

 _The problem with being a puddle_ , Jen later thought, her cheek pressed against the mattress,  _is that puddles are hard to move_. With an almost Herculean effort, she finally lifted her head enough that she could look behind her at the naked blonde draped over her right arm. "I've always heard that make up sex is the best sex. Maybe we should do it this way agai— Ow!"

Luna opened her eyes and gave her a sleepy glare, not the slightest bit apologetic for biting her hard on the arm. "No. Bad Jen."

"You don't get to scold me when you're slurring like a drunk," she said with a laugh. The younger witch's condition was not a great surprise; her apology had been rather…  _vigorous_ , after all. Since Luna was – or more accurately, had been – a virgin, she had put extra effort into finding and lavishing attention on all of the girl's erogenous zones. Admittedly, the otherwise unremarkable patch of skin above Luna's left hip had caught her off-guard, but it was definitely one she would have to remember.

 _And speaking of remembering_ , she realized as a face flashed through her mind. "Luna? There's one thing we have to talk about. It's about that promise you wanted me to make."

Thin hands squeezing tightly around her arm was the only response she received.

"I'm heading to the Continent in the summer to take an ICW exam, and someone I know has offered to let me stay at his flat. The issue is that he and I have been intimate before, and it was rather heavily implied that I would share his bed while I'm there."

"Who is it?" Luna asked in a defeated tone.

Frowning at that, Jen rolled onto her side and gently summoned the blonde into her arms. "I can't tell you that. When we last had sex, I wasn't exactly old enough to legally give consent, and if it got out, it would see him serve time in prison. He doesn't deserve that."

"It was Krum, wasn't it?" Silver eyes sought hers, and Luna's mouth twitched with a tremulous smile, the expression completely devoid of happiness. "You won't say anything, but I remember you saving his life during the Triwizard Tournament, and then he gave you those fancy earrings. He's probably going to ask you to marry him, too, isn't he?"

She grimaced. "Sirius expects that we'll see an offer for a betrothal from his father on or after my birthday, yes. We don't know for sure, though, and he won't be the only one."

"This isn't making me any happier about it," Luna said.

"I know, and I'm sorry, but…" But what?  _'Oh, I know we just sorted everything out, but I'm going to be shagging this guy in the summer anyway. Hope that's not a problem!' Sure, that'll go over well_. She sighed and rested her cheek against the crown of Luna's head. The issue at hand was that, strange and uncomfortable though it may be, she truly did want this relationship to work out, and if that meant catering to the girl's alien and still-incomprehensible ideas of what constituted infidelity, then that was what she had to do.

Of course, Flitwick had been right in that she did not have to understand the blonde's mind to understand that her actions had hurt her. She had never seen Luna upset like that before, and she was very protective of those she considered hers; the knowledge that she had been the one to cause that kind of distress had sat like a lump of lead in her belly all throughout their little shouting match.

No, she would much rather not go through this again, which was the primary reason she had been so quick to make that promise to Luna. The other reason, one she had no desire to ever mention to anyone, was that she had recalled the story Xeno had told her on Christmas Eve about the false friendship and subsequent falling out he had with Bellatrix, and looking at the situation, she had found some unsettling parallels. She had chosen to undergo a blood adoption to hide her true origins, but that did not mean she was looking to repeat the mistakes of her 'mother'.

"It would just be him, though, right?" Luna asked in weak voice. "You aren't planning on using this as a way to get out of your promise?"

"Just him, and just for the three or four days I'm in Bulgaria." Tilting Luna's head up, she gave the girl a soft peck, which elicited a reluctant smile. "I want this thing we have to work, and I'm willing to meet you halfway. This is a one-time event, and only because I already told him I would."

It felt very odd having to ask permission to have sex with someone, but her efforts were rewarded by Luna cuddling into her chest. "If you told him you would sleep with him, then it's only right you follow through, I guess."

She closed her eyes and began running her hands through Luna's hair, smiling when her actions earned a soft purr from the blonde. A few minutes passed, and then Luna said quietly, "And Jen?"

"Mmm?"

"Thank you."

* * *

"Where do you think she ran off to?" Padma asked as she and Morag walked down the stairs. For the last few days, ever since Luna and Jen's nasty breakup, the blonde had been staying in their dorm while everything settled down. Last night, however, they had come back from the library to find she was gone, and when they woke up that morning, her belongings had vanished, too. There was no note, no nothing.

Morag shrugged. "I have no ide— Oh," she said, stopping on one step just far enough down that she could peer into the common room. "That would explain it."

Frowning at the scowl spreading over the Scottish girl's face, Padma slipped past her and took a look for herself. On one of the couches sat Jen, her right hand holding a quill as she worked out calculations on a roll of parchment, but it was her left that was of greater interest. That hand was absentmindedly raking through golden locks, and Luna lay with her head in Jen's lap while she read a book.

"Maybe they've made up?" Padma asked hopefully. If so, that would be wonderful. While no one would deny that Jen made a major mistake, which was the entire reason they had sided with Luna on this, it had been downright painful to watch both girls go around moping for nearly a week. Honestly, if matters weren't as serious as they were, she would have pushed for the two of them to kiss and make up just to spare the rest of them the drama.

"After that? It'd take a lot longer for me to forgive her."

"It's a good thing that you weren't the one Jen was dating, then," she replied before continuing down the stairs.

Both Jen and Luna glanced up when she reached the common room, and in surprising move, Jen then looked over to the blonde before putting her work away. "Good morning, Padma."

"Morning." She flicked her eyes between them. "You two look a lot happier than yesterday. You got everything straightened out, then?"

Jen nodded, and Luna added, "Once we started talking about it, we realized it was a little more complicated than either of us first thought. There was also a… a miscommunication to blame for some of it."

Ah. Now things started making sense. "A miscommunication. Like whether or not your relationship was exclusive or open?"

"Something like that," Jen admitted slowly.

"Okay, then. As long as you're both fine with it, that's good."

"It certainly is not," Morag huffed, finally coming down to join them. "I don't know what you were thinking, Jen, but what you did deserves a slap to the face at the very least."

Jen's eyes narrowed. "I see. And should I presume that you plan to deliver it?"

Before anyone could say anything else, Padma reached over and tugged on the back of Morag's shirt, just hard enough to interrupt whatever thought was going through her friend's head. Antagonizing Jen was not what they needed to do right now. After the details of her parentage had been revealed but before they all reunited on the train, Padma had done a little digging into Bellatrix Lestrange's history, and what she had found had made her decide to be very careful about just how and when she pushed the Black heiress. Though Jen was normally a very good friend and a decent person, there were times, mostly when she was put on the defensive, that it was apparent just how much her mother's daughter she was.

Such as during the duels they had on their first Defense class of the term. The Hindi witch had been seriously concerned that Jen was going to murder Ron Weasley right in front of them.

"That depends," Morag said, ignoring her warning. "Luna, what do you think? Does she need it or not?"

The blonde sat up and rubbed her chin in thought. Just when Padma's heart rate started edging into truly unhealthy levels, though, she shook her head. "No, I don't think so. We handled it on our own."

"All right," the redhead replied. "But Jen? You royally bollixed things up. I don't think a simple apology will put it back to rights if you do something like this again."

"I know," Jen said with a solemn nod. "I am well aware that I'm on my second chance, and I don't expect to have a third."

"Good." With that settled, Morag stepped closer and wrapped one arm around Jen's neck in something that could generously be called a hug. "Because seriously, Luna's been downright depressing, and without Tracey around to pick on, things have been all sorts of boring."

Jen smiled lightly at that while Padma just shook her head. Some days she wondered if she was the only sane person in their little group, and on others she  _knew_  she was. "Okay, Morag, I think she gets it. Let's get moving; I need some breakfast before I listen to Umbridge some more. She's better than Binns, but it's still history."

* * *

On silent wings, a raven flew unseen through the night sky. He knew his destination, though if anyone had thought to ask, he would have expressed his surprise. Never had he thought he would be sent to this particular human. However, his Mother and his Mistress had given him his task; if She thought it important enough to send him out at midnight, then he would ferry the roll of thin-crackle-skin with all due haste to the red-feathered-wet-hen's talons. He would deliver his burden to her, and then fly back as fast as his wings would carry him for the honeycomb She had promised would be waiting upon his return.

As he flew, the scribblings She had made with the black-stink-water weighed heavily in his grasp.

_Lady Lily Potter,_

_Should you wish to resume our conversation from the Solstice Ball, I will be waiting on the balcony of Café Arabica on Newport Place, London, just off Charing Cross Road, this upcoming Saturday from nine to ten o'clock in the morning. Casual dress that will not look out of place in the Muggle world is appropriate._

_This invitation is for you alone. Should your husband, your son, or anyone else accompany you, you will not find me, nor will I offer a second invitation. I am willing to extend to you a modicum of trust. Do not make me regret it._

_Scion Jennifer Black_

* * *

**Yep, Jen's history as a prostitute came back to bite her in the ass. Who ever could have guessed** _**that** _ **was going to become an issue?**

**The longer this story goes on, the harder a time I have trying to write Luna the way she behaved in canon. I can't tell if that's because I'm losing my grip on her voice or if this version of Luna is now just that much different from her canon self. Well, that and J.K. never gave her enough screen time for me to know how she would react in a situation like this.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	35. A Long-Awaited Meeting

**Aidis, Mistake Experience:**  I don't know when or if Luna will discover Jen's former occupation, but she will learn something  _else_  about her in the next book.

 **Roku:**  Jen spilling what is arguably her darkest secret? It would take a huge incentive to get her to do that, and she is not going to give more ammunition to those she doesn't like or trust.

 **Disclaimer:**  Did all the characters in the series discover their libidos at seemingly the same time, despite such synchronization being laughably unrealistic compared to real life? If so, I do not own the Harry Potter franchise; it belong to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 35  
** **A Long-Awaited Meeting**

With a full-body shiver that was not entirely due to the cold, Lily glanced again at the hand-painted sign hanging above her as though it could give her advice on how to proceed. Unfortunately, all it did was mutely display the same words it had the last time she looked at it:  _Café Arabica_.

Jenny was waiting, and that fact absolutely terrified her.

 _Deep breaths, Lily_ , she told herself. This was the first – the only – hint that her daughter might be setting aside some of her anger at them, and she knew even without the implicit threat in the letter that had been waiting for her on her bedside table that if she bollixed this up, she might as well give up all hopes of making things better. The way James and Danny had described their conversations with Jenny made it sound like walking through a minefield, and while her own experiences were slightly better, she could tell that it would not take much to change that. She had to tread carefully through this, already a difficult enough task when dealing with a teenager, and her ignorance concerning Jenny's likes and dislikes and general personality did not help matters any.

She tugged on the shirt and slacks she had transfigured earlier that morning, smoothing out wrinkles that she half-expected were just in her mind. The note had said to come in casual dress, but about the only thing she did know for certain about Jenny was that her daughter had picked up the more political Purebloods' penchant for playing games with their prey. If she had shown up in a casual outfit and Jenny was wearing something fancy, she would 'lose' the round, which wouldn't be a problem except Jenny might consider that a point against arranging a second meeting.

Unfortunately, Lily had no idea how Jenny would react if the girl actually had come in street clothes. Would 'winning' the game raise her standing in Jenny's eyes, or would her little girl think  _she_  was playing around and take it as an insult? She honestly had no idea.

_Well, that's not entirely true; I do have some evidence that Jenny is treating this as a competition. Why else would she schedule our meeting during Danny's game?_

Escaping that obligation had actually required a bit of fast talking on her part. Ever since Danny earned the Seeker spot on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, she had made a special effort to attend all of his matches if she could. Missing one without having told him or James about a conflict weeks or months earlier was therefore unusual, and even though she knew that both of them had bought her lie about Pippin receiving a sudden order for a large batch of potions and needing her to lend a pair of hands, she still feared that James or one of their mutual friends would pop out from behind a corner and confront her.

However, she also could not blame Jenny for forcing her to make that choice. If Jenny ignored that she and James had sent her to live with Petunia because they thought she was a squib – and considering just how powerful she was, Lily would understand if she thought that reason a load of tosh – then it certainly did look as though they had favored Danny all those years ago. In that light, the question her actions asked was not only reasonable but justified:  _'Once upon a time, you picked my brother over me. Will you choose me now, or do you still consider me the unwanted child?'_

Someone bumping into her as he walked by shook her out of her reverie. A check of her watch filled her with panic that it was already five past the hour, and she hurried into the building. Her plan had been to arrive right at nine so Jenny knew how seriously she was taking this, but now she was late!

The stairwell leading upstairs was directly in front of the doors, and once at the top, it was not at all difficult for her to find Jenny. It was only eight degrees centigrade outside, so despite the ceiling keeping some of the heat in, the only other people up here were a trio of young men sitting at a table against the inside wall and nursing coffees as well as hangovers. Jenny, however, sat with her back to the stairs at a table far enough to the front of the open-air balcony that no one would be able to overhear them without making the approach obvious. Walking up, Lily understood why Jenny looked perfectly comfortable in just a thin black jumper and some blue jeans; the heating charm centered on the table raised the temperature ten or fifteen degrees. She hurriedly shrugged off her jacket and hung it on the back of the only other chair at the table. "I'm sorry I'm late. I got caught up with something."

"Yes, following the rabbit trails in your mind does tend to cause you to lose track of time," Jenny replied, smirking at her over the lip of her porcelain mug.

Lily stared at the younger witch midway through sitting down; how did she know that?! The amused expression never changed, and after a moment she looked between the wrought iron rails at the street below. This table was right above the shop's sign, which could only mean that Jenny had been watching her hesitant deliberations the entire time. "How did I not see you up here?" she wondered in a quiet voice.

"That, Lady Potter, is my secret."

"Call me Lily. Please," she added upon seeing Jenny's narrowed eyes. She had been content – well, not content, exactly, but accepting – with their previous distance when she had been more or less limited to mitigating the damage James's brash attitude had caused, but now that Jenny showed signs of finally opening up, she could push for a more informal relationship. Her hope was that eventually Jenny would be open to calling her  _'Mum'_ , but she was well aware that day was still a long way off.

A first name basis was good enough as a starting point.

Jenny's gaze judged her, and her heart did not resume beating until those purple eyes fell away and the girl took another sip of her coffee. "If you insist."

"Thank you, Jenny." Said girl's face tightened, and Lily realized the phantom  _click_  she just heard was one of the aforementioned mines arming itself. "Do you… not like that name?"

"No, I do not." Jenny – or whatever she wanted to be called – took a deep breath and slowly let it out. If that was what it took to keep her from blowing up, Lily was more than willing to give her as much time as she needed. "In the interest of reciprocation, you may call me Jen or Jennifer, or you can stick with Scion Black. But if you call me  _'Jenny_ '"—she spat the name out like it was something foul on her tongue—"again, I will walk out of here right now."

 _Well. That was much more vehement a reaction than was deserved. The question now is why?_  Licking her lips, Lily asked in as delicate a voice as she could, "If it's not too personal, why do you dislike that name so much?"

"There are two reasons," Jenny answered slowly. The girl closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, almost as though she were debating the merits of further discussing the topic, before she continued. "The first is quite simple: that is not my name. It hasn't been for years, and I have my own reasons for not wanting to be called such again. Reasons that are, quite frankly, no concern of yours," she added, and opened one eye to glare at her mother.

Lily shut her mouth with a sharp  _clack_  and nodded sheepishly.

"Second, and more germane to the discussion at hand, you have an idea of what you think I  _should_  be like, how I should think and act." Jenny laughed faintly, mocking rather than amused, and shook her head. "Even without knowing all the particulars but just from watching you and your husband and your son, I can already tell you that I am nothing like that. What's more, I categorically refuse to twist myself – or allow myself to be twisted – to fit it. I am who I am, and if it is your intention to change that for your own peace of mind, we might as well save our breaths and head our separate ways."

"I see," she replied in a soft, sad voice. She had not thought about it like that before, but one thing the girl said was true: she certainly had a different opinion of how Jenny should act. Her daughter should be a happy, carefree child, her thoughts revolving around having fun with her friends and how she could get a boyfriend without her parents finding out about it. She should not have been cut up and bent out of shape into a reflection of the Pureblood princess ideal, manipulative and condescending. She definitely should not be the cynical, suspicious, and bitter woman in a teenager's skin that sat in that chair.

Lily swallowed as horrible memories of the spiteful way Petunia had behaved when she handed her precious little girl to her sister flashed before her. The similarities were disconcerting.

Jenny rolled her eyes at her mother's glum tone. "You should consider it a compliment, Lily Potter." Lily stared back at her slack-jawed, so she elaborated, "If this were any other situation, I would have let you stumble into these issues and then held them over your head to get what I want. Instead, I have been generous enough to warn you about them up front; should you wander into trouble now, you will know that it is entirely your own fault."

And there was the condescension and manipulativeness. "Why?" she asked. "Why would you ever think to do such a thing? Instead of respect or fairness, why treat everyone like—"

She was cut off by laughter, honest this time yet no less distressing. "Even if your husband is the politician of the family, I would have thought the Lady of a Noble House would know better than that!" Jenny crowed. The young witch shook her head, a few chuckles still slipping through her smile here and there. "I care about three parties: myself, my House, and my or my House's allies. If you are not part of the latter two, my interest and sympathy is greatly limited."

Staring at her daughter with wide, anguished eyes, she whispered, "Do you truly hate the world that much?"

"No, the only ones I actively hate are my enemies. You can tell the difference by which I would gleefully watch burn." Jenny took another sip of her drink. "All that the world, by and large, deserves is my apathy. I simply do not have the time or patience to waste stressing one way or another about people I will never meet and whose lives have no effect on my own."

 _Such a sick, selfish, broken view of life. Jenny, my sweet little girl, who did this to you?_  She shoved her sorrow and tears deep down; she would let them out later, but not now, not here. "And which am I, then? An ally, an enemy, or a nobody?"

"Finding that out is the whole reason I wrote a letter to you in the first place," came Jenny's vague answer. White porcelain clinked against the table as she set her cup down, and then she raised one hand as though weighing something, her purple eyes – the color so disturbing and alien in her face – glittering with suspicion. "You claim to be reaching out to me, even going so far as to sell out your husband's proposed bill and make him look a fool in front of the entire Wizengamot." Lily flushed at that. James had not been happy after the session three weeks ago, and though he had no clue that it was her actions that caused him such distress, the guilt was still gnawing away at her insides. Lifting the other hand, Jen continued, "Yet at the same time, you send Granger back to school after whispering in her ear that I murdered the Dursleys. I would applaud you for that little bit of subterfuge had you not just proven that you don't have a single conniving bone in your body."

"I— Hermione— What?!" she spluttered. "I never said anything like that to her!"

"How interesting," her daughter purred, a smirk as wide as the Cheshire Cat's on her face. "I wonder how she came up with such a strange suspicion, then? Of course, every time she opens her mouth to accuse me of something, she prefaces it with her silly theory about my 'true' parentage, which doesn't help her case any."

Lily brought her hand to her heart with a faint wince. Even after eight months, that wound still ached. "But you do know the truth, don't you?" she asked in a pitiful voice. "You know you aren't really – weren't born – Lestrange's daughter. Right?"

Jenny watched her, a hungry house cat sizing up a juicy mouse, before she said quietly, "It doesn't matter what I believe or 'know'. Not Granger, either, or you or your husband or anyone else. All that matters is what can be proven. There are no records of my birth. I was never seen with you as a child, nor did you ever speak of me to anyone. You have no stories of my youth, and while the rest of my House does not, either, I will at least play along with them.

"What there  _is_ , however, is a form filed with the Ministry stating that the Head of House Black recognizes me as a member of his family, and another affirming that the goblins' blood magic proves me to be the daughter of James Potter and Bellatrix Lestrange née Black and therefore the rightful heir of my House. Anyone who challenges those two documents is begging to be discredited. I suggest we leave it at that."

They sat in silence for several seconds, and a growing morbid curiosity finally forced Lily to ask, "Jenn– Jennifer. Did you, well, have anything to do with Petunia and…?"

"Did I murder them, you mean?" The younger witch gave her an insane smile, and she nearly leapt out of her chair for seeing Bellatrix Lestrange grinning evilly. A snort ruined the illusion, and once again it was just Jenny sitting there, though that did not stop her heart pounding in her chest. "No, I didn't. I didn't even know they were dead until Granger mentioned it." Shaking her head in exasperation, she continued, "If she hadn't brassed me off so much, I would have thanked her for that. Best news I'd heard all month."

Her skin crawled at those words, and she looked down. She really could not blame her daughter too much for that opinion, not after hearing straight from Petunia's mouth how she and Vernon had treated Jenny, but still… "I'm sorry," she heard herself say, though a moment later she realized it was the truth. Jenny merely quirked an eyebrow, so she explained, "For leaving you with them. If we had any idea that they would do that to you, we never would have given you away. We just thought, since we were sure you didn't have magic, Petunia would be willing to take in her own blood—"

"One lesson you and your sister both taught me is that blood means nothing in the end," Jenny cut in a cold tone. Lily winced, and after a moment the girl continued with a sneer. "And I think this is the first time you have ever apologized for what you did when I was little. Took you long enough."

Each word Jenny spoke cut a little deeper, and despite the pain, Lily clamped her mouth shut. She had no defense to give; had it really taken a year and a half for her to apologize? She had not expected forgiveness when she made the apology, and it was a good thing if Jenny's attitude was any indication.

The younger witch must have read her thoughts off her face because she said, "You better not have been expecting for me to let everything –  _everything_  – that followed you abandoning me go with just a quick  _'I'm sorry'_."

"No, I didn't. I just wanted you to know that I never meant to hurt you."

For whatever reason, that simple statement sucked all the fury out of Jenny's expression, and she clapped her hands over her face and muttered something unintelligible. After another few seconds, she scrubbed at her cheeks and ran her hands through her hair. "Very well. I am willing to accept that your actions were without malice. It doesn't change anything, and I am not so good a person to forgive you at the drop of a hat, but your apology and sincerity are noted."

Lily nodded. That was the best she was going to get, and probably the most she could expect under the circumstances.

"Is that why you told me about your husband's bill?" Jenny asked, picking her cup back up and fiddling with it. "Because you felt guilty and thought that would make up for some of it?"

Clasping her own hands in front of her, she nodded. "More or less, I guess. I thought, maybe if I showed you that I wanted a better relationship…" She shook her head. "I don't know if I can tell you what I was thinking, honestly."

"If I had known the conversation was going to go down these roads, I'd have brought something to spike the coffee," Jenny muttered.

Lily snorted at that, and Jenny gave her a strange look. It only took her a moment to understand why: her daughter made the exact same sound when she did it. Bolstered a bit by that, she asked, "I've been wondering, but when you invited me here, did you expect me to come or did you think I would choose Danny?"

"What are you talking about?"

Taking a look at Jenny's perplexed expression, she elaborated, "You wanted us to meet today, and the Gryffindor–Hufflepuff match was scheduled to start at nine. If I wanted to speak with you, I'd have to miss Danny play. Are you saying that wasn't intentional?" Now she was worried, mostly because the look on Jenny's face quite clearly said  _'no'_.

"I knew there was a Quidditch game today, and yes, I did pick today to meet for that reason, but that's because I knew I could get away without anyone noticing my absence. I don't care for Quidditch, and there's always something else I could be doing with that time instead. As for  _'making you choose'_ , I had no idea who was playing or even that you attend the games in the first place."

That made sense, now that she thought back on it. She had not seen Jenny at either of the games she had attended so far this year, but since the Gryffindor–Ravenclaw game did not take place till May, she had had no idea if Jenny only went to the Ravenclaw games.  _And it means that I accused her of being manipulative when she wasn't_ , she thought with a grimace. "Sorry. I had no right to accuse you—"

"Oh, don't apologize for that. If I had known, I still would have done it," Jenny said airily. "Not necessarily to cause you problems, but simply because today was convenient. Your son's social calendar matters not a whit to me."

"Even if I'm officially not your mother, he's still your brother," she said in a gentle tone.

Her daughter raised an eyebrow at her. "As I believe I've already said, blood means nothing. It definitely does not change the fact that he is the second most irritating Potter I know." Jenny pulled a beautiful silver watch from her pocket and looked inside. "As… enlightening as this conversation has been, my time is up. Have a nice day, Lady Potter."

"Je-Jennifer," she hastily corrected, "can we, maybe, speak like this again? Please?"

The teenager froze mid-motion for an instant before standing all the way up. "I will consider it. That is all I can say on the matter right now."

Jenny began walking away, and Lily had to squeeze her hands tight to keep from jumping out of her chair and grabbing hold of her daughter's arm. Was this all there was going to be? One tense conversation in the cold, never for them to speak again? Or was Jenny being more than just polite when she said she would consider another meeting?

"Oh, and cut the heat off for me, won't you, Lily?"

She blinked before realizing that Jenny was talking about the Warming Charm on the table. And thinking about that… "Jennifer? How did you even set it up in the first place?"

All her question earned was a lazy wave as Jenny walked down the stairs out of sight.

"Jennifer!" Hastily checking that the three hungover young men were not looking at her, she whipped out her want to hit the table with a silent  _Finite_  before stashing it again and chasing after her daughter. Her short pumps clattered on the stairs, and once she got to the ground floor she threw the door open and twisted her head back and forth. The foot traffic was not that heavy, and she had not heard the loud explosion that heralded the arrival of the Knight Bus. She should have been able to spot the girl.

So where could she have disappeared to at such short notice?

* * *

Groaning and grumbling, he rolled over. The first thing he noticed was the deer that had been left out for him, and though his stomach rumbled at the sight – his captor had yet to provide him with a decent meal; maybe the shorter male was trying to starve him and turn him into a pet? – he ignored the food and instead looked and sniffed around for hints of the male or any other captors hiding out of sight. He only knew of the one, but back home he was used to having someone attack from the front and then another coming at him from behind, so he had to be careful.

Satisfied that no one was there, he reached underneath him for the rock he had been able to hide. He had been working on the ropes tying him to the nearby trees, but he knew he had to be careful. The last few times he had tried to escape, he had hit the middle of the ropes, and his captor had used foul magic to make them new again. But this time he was hitting the ropes next to the knots around his legs and waist, and a couple of days ago he had discovered that hitting them with the thin side of the rock tore through them faster than using the big side.

Everyone always laughed at him for being small, but here something being small was a good thing!

After hitting the ropes for a while, he took a break and tore into the deer, stuffing cold meat into his mouth before going back to his work. This one was almost torn through, but instead of finishing it, he moved onto the next. His captor would fix the broken rope if he saw it, but the smaller male was dumb and wouldn't look too hard if nothing looked wrong.

He had been in this strange place too long already. He needed to outsmart his captor with those strange skins and the little birdy voice, grab a log to beat up anyone that got in his way, and then go home. It would take a long time to get home because it had taken a long time to get here, but he would make it. He just needed to get loose first.

* * *

The chair on the other side of the table screeched as it was pulled out, and Tracey glanced up only to have to withhold a sigh. "What do you want, Lovegood?"

"You can call me Luna, you know," the blonde said happily before sitting down in the seat and wiggling around for a bit. The few other people sitting in the library glanced over casually before looking away, but that was still reason enough for Tracey to pull out her wand and throw a privacy charm over them. "I thought your family was part of the Wizengamot."

"We are."

Lovegood frowned. "Then why are you here instead of at the meeting? I know that's where Jen and Susan are off to."

"Because Bones is the acting Head of her House, so she has to be there," the redheaded Slytherin hissed through gritted teeth. "And Jen has a Head of House who is happy to have her at his side every month. Not all of us have that opportunity." Lovegood looked sadly at her, and already growing tired of the pity being put on display, Tracey demanded, "Now, is there a point to this interruption, or were you just so bored that you figured irritating me was a good idea?"

"I need some advice. It's about Jen."

"Merlin and Morgana, did you two  _already_  have another spat?" Lovegood opened her mouth, and she held up one hand. "Actually, I don't want to know. Forget I asked and just leave me out of it."

"No, we didn't have another fight," the younger Ravenclaw answered with a sigh. "It's just… Okay, you know how we had that argument in the first place because she was sleeping around with a bunch of people?"

"I didn't know that it was more than just with Bell, but all right. What's your point?"

"Part of our reconciliation was an agreement that if we were together, Jen wouldn't have sex with anyone else." Lovegood leaned back and thought about it for a second, or maybe she was just distracted by the voices in her head. Tracey had never been able to figure out which it was. "Well, except for one guy she said she was planning to sleep with over the summer, but the way she put it, she was kind of obligated to, and while I don't  _like_  it"—and the brief hunching of her shoulders made that obvious—"I didn't want to put her in a position where she had to break a deal she had already made. You and she are… odd… about those kinds of things. Anyway, that was something I insisted on – the monogamy part, not the guy – and I didn't think it would be a problem. And Jen hasn't made an issue of it," she added hastily, "but I'm starting to think that might not have been one of my brightest ideas."

She knew she was going to regret asking this, but… "Why was it a bad idea?"

"Because Jen is  _insatiable_ ," the blonde moaned, dropping her head onto the table. "Every night, she is ready and waiting for sex. After a week, I was so sore that—"

"Okay, Lovegood? I really don't need to hear the details," Tracey said with a shudder. If Jen was having a great sex life, good for her, but she had no desire to know every in and out of Jen and Lovegood's relationship.

"Sorry. But that's the problem. When I tell her I don't want to shag, I instead get to listen to her diddle herself once she thinks I'm asleep." Lovegood frowned again. "Which probably wouldn't be as great a concern if I slept in my own bed those nights, but really, she is much more comfortable than a pillow. And if I wake up before she does and try to slip out of bed, she always pulls me closer and makes these little snuffling noises like—"

Grinding her teeth, Tracey shoved her fingers in her ears and glared at Lovegood until the younger girl's mouth stopped moving. She waited a few more seconds to make sure the Raven was done before slowly unstoppering her ears. "Which part of  _'Don't tell me all the nasty details'_  do you not understand?"

"Oh, I understand all of it, but you didn't say that. You said you didn't  _need_  to hear the details, which is a completely different thing."

"Lovegood, I swear to Merlin, I will chop you up into little pieces and give you to the house-elves to make stew out of if you don't stop right now."

A wide smile graced the blonde's face, and though there was no hint of malice or sadism in it, Tracey just knew that Lovegood was laughing at her. "Fine. But that still leaves me the question of what to do. I don't want to tell her I don't want sex at all"—a blush spread across Lovegood's cheeks at that admission—"but I just can't keep up with her, and listening to her scratching her own itch is really awkward. You're Jen's best friend; what do you think I should do?"

"Ask her to do that before she goes to bed? Invite someone else to take care of the other half of Jen's libido? Maybe, I don't know, don't bother me about it?" Tracey suggested with a roll of her eyes.

"I don't know that I'd really be comfortable with a third person in our relationship, not so soon after our fight," Lovegood replied, clearly missing the sarcasm entirely. "Maybe in the future, I'll be willing to reconsider it, but not right now. That would solve the problem, though. Do you have any other suggestions?"

"I'm dead serious about this, Lovegood. What will it take to make you go the hell away and bother somebody –  _anybody_  – else?"

"Hmm." The blonde rubbed her chin for a moment. "Promise to call me Luna, and I'll leave."

Taking a deep breath, she said, "Fine. Luna, go away before I give in to my urge to curse you until you're unrecognizable and make Jen mad at me. Please."

"Okay. You really should practice your courtesy more, though; that  _'please'_  didn't sound sincere at all." Tracey shoved her hand in her robe's pocket, but before she could pull her wand out again, Luna was already skipping away toward the exit.

"Merlin, I almost wish Jen was shagging her more," she muttered as she turned back to her Potions essay. "Maybe that would shut her up for a while."

* * *

Jen rubbed the short letter the owl had delivered that morning between her fingers. She had not expected to receive a note from one of her professors, and especially not Umbridge of all people. This was almost certainly not related to the obese witch's job as the History teacher, though.

No, it more likely was part of her true role as the Curriculum Inspector.

The door was already cracked open when she arrived, so she gave it a few sharp raps with her knuckles. "Professor? You said you wanted to see me?"

"Ah, yes. Thank you for coming so promptly, Miss Black," Umbridge said as she entered the woman's office. "Please, have a seat. Would you like some tea, dear?"

She gave the silver tea service a sideways glance. "No, thank you. Your note was not exactly clear on just what it was you wanted to discuss."

Umbridge waved her tiny wand to shut the door. "I'm aware of that, but I'm afraid I could not think of a way to tell you without it forcing you to answer several awkward questions by anyone who read it. You see," she said, plucking a long scroll off the top of a small stack, "I had some questions of my own to ask you, specifically regarding a few unusual allegations made against you."

 _Arithmancy and History are taught on the same floor_. Taking a small breath to give her time to fight her snarl down, she gave the toad a pleasant smile. "Thank you. After realizing that Professor Vector had not cast the listening charm on her desk, I have been racking my brain for weeks trying to figure it out."

The older witch gave her a smile of her own. "And thank you for not playing dumb. It is always so much easier to get things done when people are willing to cooperate. Now, I'm sure you can guess how displeased when I read Miss Granger's accusations. Unfortunately, there are some… discrepancies, shall we say, about the investigation that we really do need to get straightened out."

This was not good. She had predicted that anyone who heard or read what Granger had said would dismiss the claims, but Umbridge was behaving as if she took them quite seriously. To make matters worse, while clamming up and refusing to speak any more on the subject without both Sirius and a criminal solicitor here was the smart course of action, it would only further cement Umbridge's suspicions. If she wanted to kill the issue right here, she would have to play along as though she had no reason to be afraid of what evidence had been found.

She knew she had left no evidence behind,  _knew_  it, but then why would Umbridge talk about an investigation?

 _Unless she's bluffing_. If Umbridge was just trying to scare her into admitting her guilt, then she would be watching for any hints or unusual actions to give her additional leverage. And a smart teenager, an heiress no less, having the foolishness or confidence to deal with these allegations alone would definitely be unusual. Speaking in a tentative voice, she asked, "Is this a conversation I need to call my Head of House in for? Or Professor Flitwick, at least?"

"Oh, no, it is nothing quite so serious as that. This is just a friendly little chat." Umbridge poured herself a cup of tea and took a sip. "I just want to know why Miss Granger thought you would murder a family of Muggles, one you claimed to have never heard of before."

"If you have a transcript of our conversation, you should already know. Granger has some ludicrous and unsubstantiated theory about my relationship with House Potter, and with every new piece of information that enters her diseased mind, she expands the conspiracy to include it despite her conclusions making absolutely zero sense." Jen shook her head. "Honestly, I'm starting to worry that her obsession might be becoming dangerous, both to me and my friends."

 _There you go, Granger. You wanted to cause me problems? Take this and choke on it_.

"So you do not have a connection to the Lady Potter beyond being the child of her husband?" the fat witch asked, the wide smile on her face only increasing her resemblance to a frog.

"No, I do not."

Umbridge nodded and opened a desk drawer to pull out a single sheet of thick paper. Magic had suffused the opposite surface, and Jen's curiosity was assuaged when Umbridge flipped it over. The paper was a moving photograph, one depicting Jen and Lily sitting on the balcony of the café. Lily's face was pinched, and Jen was sitting back laughing mockingly.

She raised her eyes to stare into Umbridge's own, and the rotund undersecretary's smile grew. "Then could you perhaps explain this to me?"

* * *

**Leave it there? Yeah, leave it there.**

**I have no clue where that third scene came from. My muse just wanted something light-hearted between the two heavier scenes to act as a palate cleanser of sorts. As for the second… all will be revealed next chapter, but let me know what you think is going on.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	36. A Giant Blunder

**Selacha, ShadowCub:**  Luna has been acting strange for a couple of chapters, I agree, but there  _is_  a reason. Look back at chapter 34; when she noticed that Jen took her books, the first thing her mind leapt to was her bullies restarting their campaign against her. Jen was the catalyst for her transformation from isolated punching bag to social "persondom", and so the thought that her and Jen being on the outs could make things go back to how they once were – despite knowing rationally that such a thing wouldn't happen – terrifies her. You don't go through two years of systematic bullying at the hands of your own house without developing a few insecurities. Now, if Jen was asking for blanket permission to cheat whenever, she might rethink that allowance, but that wasn't what was said.  _"Just him, and just for the three or four days I'm in Bulgaria. … This is a one-time event."_  That is anything but open-ended permission, and also far less threatening.

Additionally, Luna appreciated that Jen immediately disclosed the arrangement, in fact that it was mentioned at all; if Jen hadn't said anything, she could have done it on the sly and Luna never would have known. That frankness indicates that yes, Jen really did want them to be reconciled. Why else did you think Luna thanked her at the end of that scene? And while Luna would have been well within her rights to make an issue about it, it was far less stressful for her to say "Okay, but just this once" and move on.

 **ShadowCub, Wolfman217:**  Yeesh, both of you cool your jets! I don't know exactly how this thing between Jen and Lily is going to evolve – I didn't even have a plan for it before writing chapter 34, when Jen sent Lily the letter – but I promise you that they will  _never_ have a mother-daughter relationship. Surely you guys should know Jen better than that by now. If you want, I'll make that clear the next time they decide to have a little chat like this.

**Oh, and thanks to Paroseus, I now have fan art! There's a link to the picture on my profile page.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did Hagrid intentionally build a thriving colony of Acromantulas in the Forbidden Forest, a species that anyone who knew magical creatures as well as he did should have known routinely preyed on humans? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 36  
** **A Giant Blunder**

Staring at Umbridge, Jen replied to the obese witch's smug smile with one of her own, one that was all teeth.  _I promise you this, Umbridge. When you die, it will not be quick. It will not be painless. I_ _ **will**_ _make you suffer_. "I hope you realize just how big a mistake this is. A high-ranked Ministry employee having someone stalk the wife and scion of two Wizengamot members? Our Houses won't stand for that, and I can only wonder how the rest of the chamber would react to hearing about it."

"Stalk?" Umbridge teased, waving the photo between them. "Not at all. I just happen to be good friends with an amateur photographer. It is not my fault that he was so eager to share a candid shot he took when he spotted two supposed enemies having a friendly lunch together."

 _Bullshit. There is no way that photographer could have just stumbled on us. The way Cissy described Umbridge back when she first took the job, she would not be caught dead interacting with anyone of 'dirty' blood, and how many Purebloods would be willing to brave Muggle London? It is the whole reason I chose to meet Lily there._  Several drifting ideas clicked together at that thought, and she forced herself to meet Umbridge's gaze rather than pound her head against the desk as she wanted.  _And after so many years away from the Muggle world, how comfortable is_ _ **she**_ _anymore? The café is just a few blocks off Charing Cross Road. She either teleported into the Alley or Flooed to the Leaky Cauldron, and if Umbridge has a couple of stooges spending their days in the pub and keeping their eyes and ears open for any interesting rumors, he could have followed her out and to our meeting. Away from wards, my sonar only stretches a couple of meters in any direction, and we were on the second floor; he could have been right below me, and I never would have realized he was there._

_Bugger!_

She turned her attention back to the conversation. "You'll have to forgive me if I don't believe you," she snapped, shoving herself to her feet. This whole meeting was a mistake; she had been completely unprepared, and Umbridge had held the advantage at every turn. She needed to retreat, regroup with Sirius and Cissy to figure out—

"Sit down, Miss Black." Umbridge twirled the photo in her fat fingers. "Unless you want this sent to the  _Daily Prophet_ , of course, maybe with a copy of your little chat with Miss Granger? If so, you can run right along. Even with Skeeter in your 'employ' – however voluntary it may or may not be – I know there are plenty of other reporters who would love to earn their spot above the fold at your House's expense, and the possibility that a Halfblood is passing herself off as a Pureblood heiress? The outcry would be enormous, and the backlash in the Wizengamot…"

Jen's voice was a growl. "Are you threatening us, the House of Black? And is House Selwyn prepared to back you up on it? I doubt it; we don't make any secret of how we respond to attacks upon us. Just ask the Maddoxes… if you can find any."

"You should stick to fighting other children," Umbridge replied, not worried in the slightest. Jen would make her regret that. "I have the authority of the Ministry behind me, and for all your bluster, you are just a teenaged bastard in a fading House, an arrogant girl of currently…  _uncertain_  heritage. Those who matter know that the goblins' blood magic can do more than just read someone's bloodlines. Keep that in mind, Miss 'Black'." Her point made, she pointed at the chair again with a smirk. "Sit. Down."

Raising one eyebrow, Jen propped her hip on the arm of the chair, stretching the definition of  _'sitting'_  to its limit, and demanded through gritted teeth, "What do you want?"

Umbridge finally set the photo down, and Jen's eyes followed it. A plan was already forming: she could burn the incriminating evidence, stun Umbridge, and rewrite the toad's memory. She just had to be fast enough to do it all before Umbridge knew what was happening; after this, she could not bet that the other witch was an unskilled fighter. Assumptions were what had landed her in this mess in the first place. The fat woman propped her elbows on the desk and tapped her fingertips together in an unsteady rhythm. "Cooperation."

"What?"

"You asked what I want, Miss Black. I want cooperation, specifically you to cooperate with me." A cold smile appeared on Umbridge's face. "For instance, you could start by telling me what were you and Lady Potter talking about so secretly."

"I fail to see how that is any of your concern," she answered, her eyes on Umbridge but her sonar on the parchment. Two hands, two spells: one to stun and the other to conjure a fire. Not cursed fire, though, nothing so unique to her. Her magic built in her fingers, weaving itself into the spells she would need.

Umbridge smirked, and Jen knew it was because her frustration was so obvious. Depending on how things worked out, though, no one would ever need to know. "Are you worried, Miss Black? Very well. If you answer my questions fully and honestly, I will destroy this photo and all the copies that have since been made. I will even stake my magic on it."

That offer settled Jen's nerves somewhat even as it ratchet the tension higher. Magical cameras did not rely on film negatives; like the early cameras of Muggle manufacture upon which they were based, the image was made directly on the paper of the photograph. Using magic, they could still be duplicated, but it was not nearly so fast as it would be using nonmagical methods. Obviously there were ways Umbridge could get around her promise, but it was better than nothing. It also meant attacking Umbridge was out of the question, not while there was a chance that the duplicates were in someone else's possession, or worse, that she had made an arrangement with someone to release that information upon her death or incapacitation. Umbridge had prepared for this, made at least a few contingency plans; the only question was how extensive they were.

Two sharp probes flew from her mind and crashed against steel walls. The toad had mental shields, and judging from the 'ring' of the impact, they were thick and plentiful. Breaking into her memories would be taxing and time-consuming, even with her stunned. Umbridge's smile sharpened, and Jen knew that the older woman had detected her attempt at intrusion. The black witch banked her anger and ground out, "Give me your word, and I will answer the questions you pose here and now."

She would have to play along, at least for now. But when the time was right…

"Fully and honestly, and I will want your vow in return." They made their oaths, though Jen hid her smirk when Umbridge's tied itself to her core and Jen's own did precisely nothing. That was probably the best fringe benefit of exchanging her magical core for a direct connection to the planet's magic; now Umbridge was bound to destroy the only evidence of her and Lily's meeting while she could spin whatever tale was necessary to alleviate the witch's suspicions. With this, the odds were evened somewhat. "Now, your and Potter's meeting. Tell me everything."

"There's not much to tell, honestly," she replied with an affected shrug. "I went to confront her about the lies she had told Granger about me being a lost Potter and killing the Dursleys, as well as finding out just why she was doing it. Imagine my surprise when she had actually done nothing of the sort and it really was all in Granger's head. Like I told you before, she has some disease of the mind and is coming up with all this stuff herself."

"That should not have taken you that long to straighten out," Umbridge said in a doubtful tone, clearly still suspicious of her despite her vow of honesty. "What did you spend the rest of that time discussing?"

Jen crossed her arms. "Not that it's any business of yours, but we made small talk for a little bit, felt each other out. From her perspective, I'm the suddenly appearing daughter of her husband, the product of an affair she only recently found out about and from the  _Prophet_  to boot."

"And what is she from your perspective? A surrogate mother?"

"She's the wife of my sire and the Lady of a House my own aligned ourselves against not too long ago," she said, her voice hard at Umbridge's mocking.

The fat witch nodded condescendingly. "And what do you think of this woman now that you've met her?"

Umbridge was a blood purist, she knew, and so she took a chance. "I find myself disliking her less than I do either my sire or my half-brother, despite her being a Mudblood."

The slur did not cause Umbridge even to bat an eyelid, but the woman's tone was the faintest bit warmer when she continued, "Was that it? Just small talk?"

 _How close did her toady get? Close enough to hear exactly what we were saying? It was not as though we took any special precautions to avoid being overheard_. She bobbed her head side to side for a moment as though remembering. "I would consider everything we discussed after Granger to be small talk, yes."

"Very well." Umbridge pulled her tiny wand, maybe six inches if one was being generous, and pointed the tip at the photo. "But while I have you here, and under oath, as well"—the wand moved away—"why don't you tell me about the Order of the Phoenix?"

Jen grew still as what was undoubtedly the true aim of this confrontation was revealed. How far did this woman's reach extend?!  _I can't just say I don't know what she's talking about. If she did get information from one of the members and I say something that contradicts what she already knows, she could figure out that I'm lying. The vow she made was conditional; only if I answer her questions honestly will she have to burn the photos. Even though the vow isn't worth the breath she wasted as I've already lied multiple times since, she will still destroy them because she doesn't want to risk losing her magic, but that threat only has teeth so long as she doesn't know that!_  "What is the Order of the Phoenix?" she deflected.

"Don't play coy with me now, Miss Black. We wouldn't want to risk turning you into Squib, would we?" Umbridge asked with one of her little-girl giggles. "The organization Dumbledore founded, the one your sire, your Head of House, and your aunts are all members of."

 _Damn it all!_  If Umbridge really was just bluffing, her shot had been exceptionally accurate. No one would ever guess that Cissy, the wife of Lucius Malfoy, would unite with Dumbledore, not when they had famously and publicly been at each other's throats for so long. "I don't know much about it," which was actually mostly true. She shrugged again. "They don't tell me all the goings on, and I don't ask."

"Why not? A curious girl like you; I'd expect you to be pestering them every chance you get."

She leaned forward, bracing one hand against the front of the desk. "Because I really don't care about who wins this war. Light, Dark, doesn't matter. My only concern is the preservation and growth of my House, and we can do that no matter who's in charge when everything settles back down." That was true, too. The Death Eaters could win, and she would be perfectly fine aside from having to kill their leader. And that might actually be easier if they were in power. Fewer enemies would make Voldemort less paranoid, which would open a few holes in his defenses.

Umbridge frowned, but this time in real disappointment. "So what do you know?"

"I know a variety of things, just not about the Order. We really don't have the time to go through it all." The toad opened her mouth to specify what she meant, but Jen preempted her. "I know they were organized to fight You-Know-Who back in the seventies, that they were guarding something or other this summer, and that several members put their houses under the Fidelius Charm. I could probably remember a few other things if I thought about it for a while, but it would all be minutiae. Like I said, I didn't and don't consider it all that important." There, some facts that were true if she wanted to corroborate them with her mystery source and that also did her absolutely no good.

"I see," the obese woman said, slumping back in her chair. "Is there anything else you want to tell me?"

"Right now, I wouldn't tell you if you were on fire," she hissed. She gave the photo a meaningful glance. "And speaking of which…"

"Very well." A tap of the toad's wand turned the photo into cinders. "You may go."

"And the copies."

Umbridge huffed, the sound sad but fake. "You really should be more trusting, Miss Black. Suspicion, if taken too far, only becomes paranoia." Jen rolled her eyes unseen as Umbridge opened the drawer of the desk, allowing her sonar to reach into the space. There were three duplicates inside, one of which was stuck to the bottom of the drawer above, and the woman pulled them all out. Only when they were all destroyed did Jen stand and storm toward the door. She would have to trust – what a laughable concept! – that Umbridge would fear losing her magic enough that she would get in touch with whomever held the others and get rid of them, as well.

"Oh, and Miss Black? It should go without saying, but not a word of this to anyone."

"Are you going to make me take another vow?" she spat.

"Nothing so direct," Umbridge replied, false smile once again dancing on her face. "But don't forget that I can make your life very difficult if need be. I do not want to do such a thing, and I will not so long as you don't interfere with my work, but stand in my way…"

Her hand landed on the doorknob, and Jen spoke to the door rather than look at the other witch. "I don't care about your war with Dumbledore. Do whatever you want. But threaten my allies or my House again, and we'll find out just who can make whose life more difficult in the end."

"I'm glad we understand each other."

Jen gave a sharp nod and left the room, slamming the door behind her. She would not tell anyone in the school about their little 'chat', but she needed to let Cissy know as soon as possible. She had been totally blindsided, and even after all that work she still had no clue if further damage control would be necessary.

Much as she disliked admitting it, right now she needed help.

* * *

The door to his office slammed open as Minerva ran in. Her face was white as a sheet, and her voice cracked in fear as she shouted, "Albus!"

"What?" he demanded. What could have caused his deputy to look like this? "What is it?"

"Giants! Coming from the Forest!"

Albus's eyes grew wide, and he sprang from his chair to sprint at the wall to his side. The stone below the portrait of Phyllida Spore groaned and slid away on its own, revealing a narrow spiral staircase. Among the various other duties of the Headmaster, he was also tasked with being the first line of defense of the castle and her inhabitants, and that required him to be able to quickly leave his office at the top of the Headmaster's Tower and reach the grounds in case of invasion.

He had always thought that an outdated concern. Perhaps he had been wrong, after all.

It took him only a minute to reach the bottom of the staircase, and he rushed out the hidden door that opened before him into the Entrance Hall. He then had to push against the flood of terrified children that were running past him into the castle, but the students quickly saw who he was and scrambled out of his way. His pounding feet transitioned from cobblestones to soft grass, and he surveyed the danger before him.

Immediately he breathed a sigh of relief. Minerva had exaggerated the situation due to her terror: there was only one giant in sight, and it was a runty example of the species, perhaps fifteen or sixteen feet tall. The instant the giant laid eyes on him it roared, the bellow echoing through the grounds like the furious roar of a bull elephant, and then it hefted the knobby log it held in one hand and charged.

This was the most dangerous part of the confrontation. Giants had an odd and unique magical relationship with motion; when they ran, the strength that would ordinarily cause their feet to sink several inches into the earth with each step was instead channeled into their arms, keeping them secure on treacherous terrain as well as giving their already awesome strikes even greater force. For all their power, however, they were rather simple-minded and rarely used tactics more advanced than a straight rush, so they were actually easy to contain and defeat provided one kept in mind the magical resistance their skin gave them.

Albus was a Master of Transfiguration. He was not limited to hexes and jinxes to defeat his foes.

His wand moved through the air in an intricate dance, each spell he cast flowing naturally into the next. As though conducting an orchestra, he directed his magic into the ground, the wind. Grass grew several feet in the span of seconds, the blades braiding themselves into thick ropes that lashed around the giant's legs. Enormous hands of compressed soil punched out of the greenery and slammed into its chest, and though it swung its makeshift club and broke all those that had landed on it, the bindings prevented it from gathering more inertia after wasting it. Lions and bears appeared in midair to latch onto its wrists and arms, and several bathtubs worth of water were wrung out of the sky to swirl around its head and chest. He nodded to himself; all of his attacks were nonlethal, though the Water Prison Jinx needed constant monitoring to ensure that the water would not go down the giant's throat and become so. Not only would he need to interrogate the giant, he also wanted to keep any lives from being lost in this war.

No innocent need die. Nor the Death Eaters or Tom. Now that the Horcrux was gone from Danny's scar – though he still wondered how such a marvelous event had occurred – even the younger Potter child could survive. A bloodless war, or as close to bloodless as was possible; that was his earnest hope.

From the corner of his eye Albus saw Hagrid stumbling toward him, and he sighed in relief. While not as strong as a true giant, the gentle Groundskeeper should still be able to restrain this intruder. "Hagrid, I'm glad you're here. Hold him down while I—"

"Professor!" Hagrid shouted, the man waving his hands frantically. "Don' hurt him!"

"I am trying my best not to," he called back. There was something wrong with this; while he could understand Hagrid feeling sympathy for a member of his mother's race, surely his visit to the giant colonies had also shown him just how dangerous the towering humanoids could be.

 _Unless his time with them caused him to identify with them rather than with wizards_ , a treacherous voice whispered in the back of his mind. He gave his head a shake. Now was not the time to let his paranoia get the better of him, and he knew from past experience that listening to it would cause him to break his self-imposed vows of forgiveness, restraint, and respect for life. Once he was finished with this newest issue, he would need to ask Fawkes to sing to him to soothe his troubled spirits.

"Please, Professor, let him go." Great tears dripped down Hagrid's face. "He's my brother."

"Your brother?!"

"Aye. Well, half-brother, really," confirmed Hagrid with a nod. A bustling commotion built on the periphery of Albus's awareness, but most of his attention was on his Groundskeeper and Care of Magical Creatures professor. "I found him when me an' Olympe were in the mountains. The other giants were bullyin' him 'cause he's so small, an' I couldn' jus' leave him there. So I figured, the best place ter keep him safe an' teach him ter be all respectable-like was here. At Hogwarts."

He repeated in a dull voice, "So you brought him to the castle." He was losing either his mind or his hearing; that was the only possible answer, for he could not have heard what he thought he heard. Hagrid was not, well, the  _'brightest candle in the box'_  to use a colloquialism, but surely even he would not be  _this_ foolish.

A fast nod and a broad smile confirmed his worst fears. "Aye. I was keepin' Grawp in the Fores' so he wouldn' cause any problems, but I guess he was jus' tired of stayin' there an' wanted ter run aroun'. He didn' mean no harm, Professor, promise."

Before Albus could respond, the giant – Grawp, had Hagrid called him? – slumped in its bonds, and he gave his wand a single dismissive flick to dispel the water and call back the grass. Once all the restraints were gone and the lions sniffing around it had been sent back to the aether, he could see rings of rope tied tightly around the giant's ankles and waist. That did little to improve his mood. "Did you have him  _tied up_  in the Forest?"

"Well, yessir," Hagrid answered with an embarrassed blush, and his jaw dropped in horror. This debacle was just getting worse and worse! "He was tryin' ter run off all the time on the way, an' I knew it weren' safe fer him ter do tha' here. He wouldn' listen when I tried to tell him, though, so I had ter tie him up. The centaurs wouldn' have liked him runnin' aroun' their parts of the Forest, an' I didn' wan' him ter stumble into Aragog's kids."

 _He kept trying to escape, enough that he had to be tied up?_  A terrible suspicion settled in Albus's gut even as a squad of Hit Wizards ran toward them. In a quiet voice meant not to carry to the Ministry wizards, he demanded, "Hagrid, did he even  _want_  to come here?"

Unfortunately, Hagrid did not seem to grasp his intention, and he answered in his normal booming voice, "Not exac'ly, bu' wha' was I supposed ter do, jus' leave him there? It wasn' safe. I  _had_  ter rescue him. I tried ter tell him wha' we were doin' on the way back here, but Grawp doesn' know much English, an' Olympe an' me couldn' get a hang of the giants' talk. I though' I'd have plenty of time ter teach him how ter speak proper, an' then I could tell him wha' was wha'."

_And that explains why Hagrid has looked like he's lost a series of bar fights the past few months. I knew the thestrals could not have been that ill-tempered. No, Grawp was fighting the man who stole him away from his home and kept trying to get free!_

"You didn't rescue your brother, Hagrid," he nearly shouted in his anger. "You  _kidnapped_  him!"

"No, I didn'! I was keepin' him safe!"

The leader of the eight-man squad stormed up to the arguing men, her wand out and a scowl plastered over her face. "Professor," the redheaded Hit Witch said, giving Albus the smallest possible nod, "our thanks for disabling the giant. Someone from International Cooperation will come by to transport it back to its reservation; until then, we will move it outside the wards."

"You will have to wait for him to wake so he can tell you where he comes from—" he began in a conciliatory tone.

She cut him off. "Which is someplace other than Britain. You want to take that up with DIMC, that's your business. I just care that it's incapacitated and gets kicked out of the country. And  _you_." The black-clad witch jabbed an accusing finger at Hagrid. "You were the one who brought this monster here?"

Albus looked desperately at Hagrid and shook his head, but the half-giant did not comprehend his signal. "Yes, ma'am. But he's not a danger or anythin'. He jus' got a little excited, tha's all."

"Good for him. You're still under arrest."

"Wha'?" Hagrid looked around at the seven Hit Wizards and Witches moving to encircle him. "Wha' did I do?"

"You smuggled a giant into the country, and since they're considered 'beings'," she added with a faint sneer, "you also just admitted to kidnapping. On the ground, hands on your head," she barked when Hagrid just kept standing and staring at her. "You'll be placed in a holding cell in the Ministry until your trial unless you resist, in which case you would instead be transferred to Azkaban."

That name finally clicked in Hagrid's mind, and Albus grimaced as he all but saw the gears in the large man's mind start to spin. "No! I'm not goin' back there!" He looked around him for a second even as Albus silently screamed at him not to do anything stupid.

And then he ran.

A dozen Stunning Spells splashed off his back, doing nothing thanks to his mother's blood. It looked at first like he would be able to escape, but unfortunately one of the Hit Wizards had been paying attention to how Albus subdued Grawp and slung a rope of fire that wrapped itself tightly around his neck. The headmaster looked away from the scene, but that did not prevent him from hearing Hagrid's strangled gasps or smelling burnt flesh. The Flame Whip was perfect for this purpose, as unlike regular rope there was nothing solid for Hagrid to grab onto and pull. Several seconds of fruitless struggle passed before Hagrid slumped to his knees, and the fire winked out just before he toppled over.

Albus raised his hand to the black-robed wizards piling on top of Hagrid, but before he could call out, the lead Hit Witch stepped in front of him. "Please do not interfere, Professor," she warned. He knew he knew her, even if he could not put a name to her face, but when he opened his mouth to try to reason with her, she continued, "We have grounds to arrest him, and any interference would require us to bring you in as well. Just let us do our job."

"And will he receive an actual trial or merely be thrown into Azkaban and conveniently forgotten?" he challenged. That was what Cornelius had done when Hagrid had been arrested the first time, back when Slytherin's monster had once again been terrorizing the school, and he had had a devil of a time trying to force Hagrid's release.

She shrugged. "I'd assume so, but that's not part of my duties. You'd have to take that up with Director Scrimgeour or Minister Bones. Let's move, people!" she bellowed, turning around and waving the Hit Wizards and their two captives back toward the gate leading out to Hogsmeade.

Albus watched them depart, his conscience demanding he do something but his reason coming up with nothing. Hagrid had made a terrible mistake, had admitted it in front of the DMLE, and while he would certainly prepare his friend for the trial ahead of them, he could think of no way to help other than letting this play out for the time being.

Looking over his shoulder, he spotted Dolores standing in the entranceway, a smug smirk on her face as she watched. She was undoubtedly the one who had Floo-called the DMLE, but even as bad as the situation was and how much enjoyment she was gaining from it, he could not exactly blame her for her actions. If there had been more than one giant of if he had been anyone other than Hagrid's half-brother, her decision would have been the right one.

That was not how things had been, however. Now he was down a professor, a groundskeeper, and an ally, and there was nothing he could do about it.

* * *

"Did you find anything?"

Hermione shook her head as she sat at the table, and Danny sighed. The two of them, along with Ron and Neville, had spent the weekend and all evening Monday combing through the library's law books, searching for anything that could help Hagrid. Professor Dumbledore had announced at dinner the day of Hagrid's arrest that this situation would quickly be resolved and that they had nothing to worry about, but his dad had called him into the office afterward to explain that the issue was not quite that simple. What Hagrid had done, despite his good reasons, was still a crime. It was possible to help him, but he probably would not get off, just have his punishment lessened.

They, however, were not so hopeless. Surely there was something that would get Hagrid's mistake excused.

The doors of the Great Hall banging open pulled the attention of the rest of the students from their lunch. From the Entrance Hall came a small crowd of witches and wizards; most were positively ancient-looking, withered and stooped, though there were some who were merely old or even middle-aged. Four Aurors walked before the group, and they were being led by Umbridge.

Danny scowled at the fat witch. Though she had not pranced around yelling for Muggleborns to be murdered the way Malfoy always did, it was still obvious that she favored the 'right-minded' Purebloods in her classes, and when Hermione finally talked her into given them the titles of the books she was using for reference, they had all been written by a Lestrange or a Nott or a Black. His father had been keeping an eye on her for when she inevitably slipped up and revealed herself for the blood purist she was, but so far she had kept up the act.

Dumbledore stood from his place at the high table and glanced over the group. "Madam Marchbanks, Professor Tofty. What brings you to Hogwarts? The OWLs and NEWTs are not for several more months."

"No, they are not," agreed one of the wizened old men. "And I wish we were here for something so routine. Dolores, if you would?"

"Of course, Chairman Tofty," Umbridge replied in an obsequious voice that was just as false as her giggles. She pulled a scroll out of her pocket and unrolled it, then cleared her throat. "By order of the Ministry of Magic: Due to his flagrant disregard for the safety of the students of Hogwarts, his questionable hiring decisions, his complacency in the violation of the Ban on Experimental Breeding by a member of his staff, and his suspected use of compulsions or memory manipulations on magical children to suppress and destroy evidence of his misdeeds…" All four houses gasped at that, and Danny exchanged shocked looks with his friends. Was she accusing one of the professors – besides the unlamented Lockhart – of using Memory Charms? Hermione's eyes were wide with dread, and he followed her gaze to the Headmaster. Once the uproar had settled down, Umbridge continued, "Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore is hereby stripped of his position as Headmaster of Hogwarts, effective immediately."

"This is an outrage!" McGonagall shouted as she stood from her seat, Sprout joining her not a second later. Snape and Flitwick, traitors both, stayed where they were, but at least the Charms professor looked troubled by the news. The faculty that were not heads of house were likewise split, though Danny was thankful his father was one of those on his feet.

Umbridge shouted over them, "Furthermore, Madam Griselda Marchbanks"—here the oldest witch standing behind her raised her arm so everyone could find her—"formerly chairwoman of the Wizarding Examination Authority, is named as the interim Headmistress until such time as the Department of Magical Education and the Hogwarts Board of Governors can interview and nominate his official successor. This order is signed on this day, 18 March, 1996, by Amelia Bones, Minister of Magic, and countersigned by Rufus Scrimgeour, director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and Phillip Cromarty, director of the Department of Magical Education."

"You have no right." Dumbledore's own voice, hard with anger, cut through the shocked chatter like a knife, and the magic roiling off him in waves distorted the air around him. "Hogwarts is outside the Ministry's control, and always has been! It is a right protected by this school's very charter!"

"Was,  _Mr._  Dumbledore," Umbridge said with a self-satisfied smile as she rolled the Ministerial decree back up. "Hogwarts was outside the Ministry's direct control, but no longer. Your actions have proven that this school – for now, at least – cannot be allowed its chartered autonomy if it is to fulfill its purpose of educating the wizards and witches of tomorrow. And the right to make such a decision is guaranteed to the Ministry in section 31 of the school's charter, if you wanted to refresh your memory, should there ever be evidence that a Headmaster either attempts a political coup, commits a felony, or displays gross incompetence. I would say the last few years have definitely proven the third, and the possibility of using memory charms to cover it all up on top of that? That is a crime." She shook her head. "Aurors, please carry out your duties."

The lead Auror nodded and approached the staff table. "Mr. Dumbledore, if you would hand over your wand and come with us."

"This is quite unnecessary," Dumbledore replied, his anger forgotten as he settled back into the friendly warmth characteristic of the Leader of the Light. "Surely, after your years here yourself, you should know that."

"It might… if I had attended Hogwarts." The other three Aurors nodded in agreement with their commander's words. "But that does not change the fact that you are accused of multiple crimes and need to come with us for questioning."

Dumbledore glanced over the Aurors, over the members of staff that had stood for him, over the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables, and then he sighed and shook his head. "I would, but I'm afraid I know the  _real_  reason you are doing this, and so I will have to disappoint you. My presence and wisdom are needed outside a cell in Azkaban." The Auror raised their wands, but they were too slow. A furious scream came from the rafters as Fawkes plummeted like a stone, stopping bare inches from Dumbledore's head. The wise wizard clapped his hands above him on the phoenix's tail feathers, and then he was replaced with a tornado of flame that scorched the table and melted the silverware while Umbridge shrieked in frustration.

After an instant, that too vanished.

* * *

**All the details of how Hagrid brought Grawp to Britain against his will? Straight out of chapter 30 of** _**Order of the Phoenix** _ **. I swear, every time I start thinking that I'm making this setting darker than I can legitimately justify, I find something else in canon that reminds me just how awful the HP world is.**

**I don't know whether to be happy that no one guessed where the situation between Jen and Umbridge was going or worried that no one saw what I thought was fairly obvious. Thanks to you guys, I've proofread and tweaked this chapter rather more obsessively than was needed. That said, remember that Umbridge in this story is** _**competent** _ **; canonically she was an undersecretary (in real-world British government, a high-ranked government official; in America, she'd be two steps below a Cabinet Secretary like the Secretary of State or Defense), and in this story I have already said that she is Fudge's right-hand woman. Her talent for manipulation and politics trumps Dumbledore's, and her sheer experience trumps Jen's.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	37. Lines in the Sand

**Hard as it is to believe, we're getting close to the end of this book. Assuming that my count is correct (always a risky prospect with my muse), there should only be six or seven chapters after this one. We'll then move immediately into the next book, or we will provided writing this and** _**Deal with a Devil** _ **concurrently doesn't kill me first.**

**Disclaimer:**  Was a section of Divination ever dedicated to training and strengthening the Inner Eye, even though that there was an OWL for the class (and, in fact, that Bill and Percy both passed it) shows that it was a skill that could be at least marginally taught? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 37  
** **Lines in the Sand**

A few embers and stubborn tongues of flame were still present on the staff table when Umbridge stormed out of the Great Hall, her impromptu entourage right behind her, and Marchbanks hung back for only a few seconds before she followed as well, presumably to tell the students that they could come to her with any concerns they had or some such nonsense. Jen was not exactly paying much attention.

She was a little too busy keeping her head from splitting in half.

 _That Baron-damned phoenix. One of these days, that overgrown vulture is going to get in trouble, and then I will take great joy in squeezing its bloody life right out of it._  She had a bad experience with Dumbledore's pet the year before, but that was just it chirping and singing. This time, with that angry scream? She was forced to bite down on her bottom lip to keep from crying out in agony and alerting the whole world to her darkened nature.

"Jen, you're bleeding."

She reached up to feel below her nose, but it was the finger that fell on her chin that found the wet. Correction: she had bitten  _through_  her lip. Thankfully Luna had whispered that warning into her ear instead of saying it where the other Ravens nearby could hear, so no one else noticed when her hand pulled away to reveal her chin to be once more intact and bloodless. "Thanks."

"Do you think she was serious?" Padma asked, turning away from her neighbor. "About Dumbledore using Memory Charms? I mean, that's a huge accusation, and surely she wouldn't make it without proof of some kind, but still…"

A scoff came from behind them, and Tracey slid into the small gap next to Luna. "Wouldn't surprise me in the least," she said, faint snarl painted on her face. "Everyone in the Wizengamot knows he's not as lily-white as he likes to paint himself. Well, everyone except the idiots who look up to him like Merlin reborn; he could say he was really Grindelwald and never gave up on his goals of ruling the world, and they would still do whatever he asked of them."

Before Padma or Morag, neither of whom had ever had reason to distrust the man, could respond to that, Jen cut in, "She must have some evidence to back up her claims, something convincing enough to get the head of the DMLE on her side. If she didn't, Scrimgeour likely would have sent her with a couple of MLEP Patrolmen rather than two pairs of Aurors for an otherwise normal arrest. And then there's the fact that his name was right after Susan's aunt's on the order…"

 _We knew she was up to something when she first came here, but when she revealed that she was after Dumbledore, I didn't think she'd actually manage to pull it off._  Though it did explain Cissy's command to stay out of Umbridge and Dumbledore's fight after Jen informed her of their own confrontation. They as a House could utterly crush Umbridge personally, even if House Selwyn jumped in as well, but her aunt had made it clear that such a battle would be expensive and offer them no real benefit. Umbridge was crafty and ruthless, the type of person Slytherin house was glad to count as an alumna, and while her outspoken support of blood purity when she was younger had hurt her professional ambitions and seen her married off to a wizard of no real station, she had studied the game of office politics and now played it quite well.

Cissy had been firm in that this was not an opponent Jen was ready to face, at least not in an arena that eschewed copious bloodshed.

"But," Morag began, eyebrows knitting together, "then what was that last bit about? The whole,  _'I know the real reason'_  thing?"

"Tracey, would you like to field this question?" asked Jen with a grin.

"Why, thank you. I do believe I would."

"You said students of noble Houses know what he's really like." Luna glanced over from Jen and Tracey to McGonagall and James. "And his supporters will continue to do so no matter what he says. So getting the last word in… Was that for us? All the ones who don't fit in either camp and wouldn't necessarily have made up their minds already?"

"Give this girl a biscuit," Tracey replied, a surprised and reluctantly pleased expression on her face. "Yes, Lov—  _Luna_ , that is exactly right. I thought you said you didn't understand politics?"

Unfortunately, the last remnants of Jen's pounding headache kept her from rethinking the wisdom of blurting out the first thought that sprang to mind. "Well, you know what they say. You are what you eat."

Morag and Tracey both turned away with exasperated huffs at that comment, the Slytherin adding a faked retching sound, and Luna blushed so red and hot that Jen honestly feared for her safety for a moment. It took Padma a second longer to get the joke, but when she did, she groaned and dropped her head into her hands. "Dear Merlin, Jen, that's just not right."

"I thought it was funny," she answered with a shrug. Picking up the roll still on her plate to finish as she walked, she stood and grabbed her satchel. "Well, I'm headed out. I doubt we're going to have another show as entertaining as watching Albus Dumbledore get his arse handed… to…"

Wait. What did Umbridge say his full name was?

"Hey, Luna?" The blonde hummed. "That Christmas present I got you. Do you mind if I borrow it for a while?"

"Why?"

"There's something I want to check out."

Luna blinked slowly at her and nodded, then she stood as well. The rest of her friends at that table joined them only an instant later. "When you're right, you're right," Tracey answered to her questioning glance. "This is sure to be much more interesting than regular lunch."

She could not exactly argue against that, not if her suspicions wound up being confirmed. Of course, then there was the issue of just what she was going to do with the information.

Susan, Justin, and Kenneth were quick to catch up, invited over by Tracey and Morag, and the eight teens were only able to climb two flights of stares when Jen heard the flapping of wings. Loki darted over and dropped an odd object into her waiting hand: a brass triangle, approximately as thick as one of her fingers, with a grey glass ball set in one side. The raven landed on her shoulder and puffed up proudly, pleased with himself that he had accomplished the task before him without needing to be told.

"In here." Her court followed her into an empty classroom, and she jerked her head back at the door. "Could someone lock and secure this place, please?"

While Susan did that, everyone's attention on the redhead, Jen concentrated on the moment she wanted to relive and swiped her index finger against her right temple. A single silver thread of magic and thought drifted in the air from its anchoring point. Her friends glanced again at her only after she had already pulled down her hand, and the vaporous memory was sucked into the glass ball and warmed its depths. It looked like it had worked, but… "You're sure about your research?" she asked her girlfriend.

"As sure as I can get without a definite name or more books than the library has specifically dedicated to obscure magical artefacts of the nineteenth century."

"Would someone like to clue the rest of us in?" Justin asked in an innocent voice.

"If my information is correct, what Jen is using is called a Memoratory – and yes, I know it's a dumb name," Luna said to their friends' snickering. "It was created by William Milner, a Canadian wizard who wanted to create a simpler and cheaper replacement for a Pensieve. Since he was an amateur enchanter and was trying to replicate a collaborative effort of several masters, he obviously failed, but it is still a useful little device. You can stick up to five memories into it, and then it projects them and lets you cycle through them as desired." She shrugged at the looks of renewed interest getting sent at the artefact. "Unfortunately, the memories don't move, but I suppose if they did, Milner's attempts at selling his creation would have gone better."

"Okay. So what are we doing with it?" Kenneth asked.

Jen turned around and tapped her finger on the ball; a pulse of light flashed out and coated the walls. "We're taking a little trip to the Ministry."

The light rippled and bent, wooden shelves sliding out and a gloomy darkness spreading like mist above them. The centuries-old stone floor was replaced with more modern black tiles. Hundreds of glass balls gleamed in the limited candle light as one section of the Hall of Prophecies was perfectly replicated inside Hogwarts, and everyone besides Jen and Luna, who had already seen the projector do its work, stared in amazement at their surroundings.

Padma summed up their collective opinions. "This. Is. Incredible."

"That it is," Jen agreed as she bent down to check the labels underneath the orbs. If she remembered correctly, the prophecy she had listened to was kept at chest height, and it was a little short of midway down the corridor—

Ah, there it was.

"S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D. 12 May, 1980. Dark Lord, Danny Potter, and unknown," she whispered. Her friends gathered behind her, and she stepped away to let them read the label. "Dumbledore was the one to hear it; no one else would have initials like that. So now the question becomes, who is S.P.T.?"

But at least this was one question answered. Dumbledore's problem with her really was that she was named in the same prophecy as his vaunted Light savior. He must have celebrated for days after learning that the potential thorn in his side had been sent to the Muggle world, never to be seen again. If only he knew the truth, that it would be that very action that ensured her 'fall', he would have instead done whatever he had to do to put her with the best family in the world and see to it that she everything she ever wanted. Better she be a spoiled brat than a dark witch and a willing servant of Death.

"What I want to know is what the prophecy says," Morag disagreed. "Do you think it means that Potter is going to beat You-Know-Who again?"

"Merlin, I hope not." Tracey shook her head. "It'd just make his head even bigger."

With a shrug, Jen answered, "I don't know. If I had to guess, however, I'd say that his name is on it for how he defeated You-Know-Who back in '81, and it's the second person, the one the Unspeakables don't know the name of, who will ultimately rid the world of him."  _Which, unless I want the Baron coming after my head, is going to be me._

Unaware of that condition, her friends nodded in understanding, and most of them developed wide smiles as they thought it over. And she supposed that for them, this was indeed good news; the last few months, ever since Voldemort had revealed himself anew, had not been easy. People were running around scared, screaming for the Ministry to do something, anything, to stop him. Hundreds of petitions had been filed for people to emigrate to the Continent or the States, but the receiving governments were still refusing to house all those potential refugees. For a couple of weeks, there was even talk of barring all traffic to and from Britain; so far, nothing had come of it, but she was still worried that it might interfere with her plans to take her Dark Arts Competency Exam in Bulgaria.

Learning that someone was destined to save them from this nightmare  _should_  have had them jumping for joy.

Kenneth was grinning like the others, but his attention was still on the label. "If Dumbledore is A.P.W.B.D., I think I  _might_  know who S.P.T. is. It's just believing it that I'm having trouble with."

"Who?"

"Trelawney." They stared at him as though he were mad, and the seventh-year blushed faintly. "Her full name is Sybil Patricia Trelawney; S.P.T. It fits."

Padma's face crumpled in disbelief. "My sister is completely enamored with Trelawney, to the point that I worry one of these days she's going to  _propose_ , and that means I've heard more about that old fraud than I ever wanted to know. There's no way she could come up with a real prophecy like this." Justin, who took Divination himself, nodded in emphatic agreement.

"Though it would explain why Dumbledore kept her around for so long," Tracey muttered. "It's definitely not for her teaching ability. Same reason Hagrid taught Care."

"Possibly," Kenneth said, holding up one finger for silence, "but there's one thing that none of you are considering, the only reason I offered her up as a suggestion. I used to take Divination, and at one point I did some digging into prophecies to find out if the problem was with divination as a whole or just Trelawney. What I learned, beyond that the issue was her, is that there are two very different kinds of Seers who can speak prophecies: true Prophets and Oracles. Prophets use cards or crystal balls or tea leaves or whatever to induce their visions, but no matter what the crutch is, it's still something they can control. Oracles, on the other hand, are at the mercy of their visions; they have no clue when one is going to hit them or what they say when one does. And, of course, neither one remembers their prophecies after leaving their little trance.

"Now, if Trelawney is an Oracle but  _thinks_  she's a Prophet…"

Luna caught on to where he was going first. "Then she could have made this prophecy despite her lack of skill in other areas. It would even explain her behavior. She isn't pretending to see omens in every little thing; she actually believes she does."

"Though it doesn't explain why Parv bought so fiercely into it all," Padma muttered. It had the sound of an old and oft-repeated complaint.

"Perhaps she bought into Trelawney's spiel the same way Trelawney herself did," offered Jen. "Or maybe she actually has a small touch of the Sight and Trelawney is helping her focus it. That's something you'll have to figure out for yourself."

The bells rang before anyone else could speak, signaling everyone to leave the Great Hall and head to their third-period class. Jen reached out for the faint distortion floating in midair, the only visible indication for where the Memoratory was, and gave the glass ball another tap to collapse the illusion. "I'll leave the memory inside for a couple of days in case any of you want to peruse it some more. You'll have to talk to Luna about it, though, as it's her projector."

"Hey, Jen," Susan asked, a curious frown growing. "Ignoring that you apparently broke into the Ministry – though we  _are_  going to have a talk about that later – how did you even know it was there in the first place?"

Her smile fell as the memory of the prophecy's contents filled her head. "I heard someone talking about it, and I'm too damn curious for my own good."

* * *

**HERO OR VILLAIN?  
** **DUMBLEDORE'S CRIMES EXPOSED!**

_If there is one name that every witch and wizard knows, it is that of Albus Dumbledore_ , writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent.  _For many, he is on par with the heroes of yore, a knight standing against evil and injustice following his famous duel with the German Dark Lord Grindelwald, as well as his many fights against the forces of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. If not for his magical prowess, he is known for the extreme amount of political power he wields, at one point filling the roles of Chief Warlock to the Wizengamot and Supreme Mugwump to the International Confederation of Wizards in addition to hhis primary position as Headmaster at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. His work promoting the cause of Muggleborns entering our world is legendary. For all that he has been at times criticized by politicians and the press – in fact, even by this very publication – no one ever doubted that his actions were done with the best interests of the Wizarding World in mind._

_How wrong we all were._

_Thanks to a special investigation concerning the unseen workings of the school begun in October of this year by Dolores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to former Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge and current History of Magic professor at Hogwarts, under her auspices of Hogwarts's Independent Curriculum Inspector, darke hints of the crimes committed by this fake hero of ours are slowly but surely being teased out. Already, however, there is justification for action, and yesterday morning Minister Amelia Bones gave the order to strip Dumbledore of all his positions of power and have him brought into custody for questioning. Despite the best efforts of the four Aurors who accompanied the delegation from the Department of Magical Education sent to deliver the Ministry's decisions, Dumbledore managed to escape the castle. In his place, the DME has appointed Griselda Marchbanks, a long-standing member of the Wizarding Examination Authority. This reporter was unable to question the new headmistress regarding how long she expected it would take to repair the damage Dumbledore's illicit actions have caused, but if Headmistresses's frantic dismissal was any indication, we can presume that it will not be an easy process._

" _It was a shock to uncover this," Madam Umbridge told this reporter following the confrontation. "When Minister Fudge asked me to take the position of Curricullum Inspector, all I really expected to find were teachers with a couple of bad habits or some lessons that were being taught at the wrong level. Simple things that a few tweaks here and there would easily correct. Instead I came across a number of security mishaps and outright disasters, none of which anyone outside Hogwarts students or staff knew had ever happened. Even the parents I got in touch with were as clueless as the rest of us!_

" _When I dug deeper, I learned that many members of the faculty had wanted to bring the proper authorities in to handle those situations, but at each turn Dumbledore had interfered and convinced them to stay silent, whether that be by using his reputation, bribing them, or in one case even threatening a professor's job and chances to find a replacement later if she told anyone the truth. It didn't matter what the pproblem was – fights between entire houses breaking out; students disappearing for weeks at a time; a murderer, albeit in this case wrongfully convicted, skulking about and trying to break into the students' dorms; one poor girl losing her magic completely and being forced to live out the rest of her days as a Squib; or even a centuries-old basilisk roaming the halls and petrifying children at random – he refused to let anyone interfere in how he ruled his little fiefdom."_

 _Indeed, the information Madam Umbridge forwarded to the_ Daily Prophet _was chilling; that any mman could cover up such horrors is bad enough, but for it to be someone the world has depended on for decades? Perhaps we all should be glad that the Ministry was able to discover Dumbledore's true nature before he could do any more damage, though that undoubtedly provides little salve for the families of the five students rumored to have lost their lives over the past decade due directly to Dumbledore's negligence._

_As for the the fact that his escape was only made possible by the efforts of his pet phoenix, which some protest is a sign that he is not as wicked as we are claiming here? Madam Umbridge posits an answer for that, too. "While phoenixes have long been considered creatures of goodness that can only be domesticated by those pure of heart, the truth is that we still know so very little about these marvelous creatures, due in large part to the stigma facing those willing to studey them. It could be that they are merely animals like any other, becoming pets to those who treat them well, or perhaps, assuming the folklore has some basis in fact, Dumbledore was merely delusional rather than unrepentantly evil and honestly thought his many, many crimes were justified. Without interrogating him, there is no way to be certain, and even then we may never know the whole story."_

_Albus Dumbledore is currently at large and is considered extremely dangerous. The DMLE requests that anyone with information that may lead to his capture contact the Auror Office immediately._

_For a partial list of Dumbledore's newly revealed crimes, continue to page_ _**A6** _ _._

Voldemort stared at the newspaper for several seconds in total befuddlement before he finally spoke. "And you are sure this is accurate?"

Because if it was, if the Ministry had truly thrown Dumbledore out of his seat of power with one well-executed blow, then it had become drastically more competent in the three months since Bones took over from Fudge. It would now be more difficult to conquer, but as he considered the ramifications of this gambit, he realized he would not exactly mind if that were the case. After all, he had quite enjoyed his little spat with Bones in Diagon Alley, and now more confrontations were all but assured. While Fudge had been a king on their board of war, impotent and cowering on his back lines, Amelia Bones was a queen, the most powerful piece in the game; unless he had massively misread her, she would insist on being in the thick of the battle, and she had already proven herself to be an able strategist.

Oh, this would be a delightful challenge, no doubt about it.

"Yes, my Lord," Lucius replied, his oily smirk firmly in place. "I double-checked with my source at the  _Prophet_  office, and Macnair told me that the Ministry is all abuzz about it. Fudge's position as the Muggle ambassador has, unfortunately, moved him out of the loop, but I suspect he will speak to Umbridge within the next few days, and I can question him then."

"Umbridge, Umbridge… Why does that name sound so familiar?" he wondered aloud. "Is she one of yours?"

"No, Master. Though she supports the Cause itself, her loyalty belongs to the Ministry. Thankfully, it is to the institution as a whole rather than any individual; when you take it over, she will follow you."

"That presumes that she will not bear a grudge for the manner in which I take power." Lucius shrugged, and he made a note to speak to Thaddeus. The eldest Nott was one of his earliest Death Eaters, in fact was an old classmate, and Voldemort knew that the wizard had a far better memory for names and rumors than he did. Perhaps he would be able to shed some light on the subject.

Pulling a vibrating watch from his pocket, the blond wizard quickly checked it before stowing it once again. "What is it this time?" the Dark Lord asked in a mocking voice. "High tea with the Minister? A garden party?"

"A meeting with the rest of the board of governors. Undoubtedly, we are to begin the search for the new headmaster." Lucius hesitated a moment, as though weighing his words. "Is there someone among us who would be best to fill that position?"

"If everything goes according to plan, that will be a moot point soon enough." Voldemort chuckled darkly. "No, pick whomever you wish. The castle's best defender has now been thrown out like a common thief; whom is chosen to succeed him matters not. Just make sure it is not one of Dumbledore's dogs. Hogwarts is the greatest stronghold in the country, and I do not want him regaining access to it."

"I understand. But what about this place?" Lucius asked, gesturing at the walls of Riddle manor. "You said that we would not remain here forever, and Dumbledore is not without his talents. Now that he has nothing to distract him…"

Voldemort nodded in agreement. "Yes, you make a valid point. Have our recent recruits move the maps and dossiers to your estate. I have been working on a new location for our headquarters, one equidistant to our primary targets; I suppose I need to finish that project a little sooner than expected." Turning to his left, he examined the campaign map hanging on the wall. "But just in case, have the beasts moved to their respective rally point 'B's. Once our new base is ready, we will then lead them to their barracks.

"And while they are waiting," he added, "have the werewolves and vampires visit the nearby towns when they aren't practicing for Operation Rampart. I want their numbers to be increased by close to a third when the time comes."

"But it won't be a full moon then," Lucius reminded him.

"No, but that is what we have Augustus for." The former Unspeakable was not as good with potions as Severus, who probably could have come up with a solution already, but unlike the Potions Master, Augustus's loyalty was assured. "Let him worry about his duties, and you handle yours."

* * *

"Do you think that got their attention?"

"Yes, brother, I do believe it did."

Fred and George glanced at each other before breaking down in a fit of the giggles as the blasts and booms still echoed behind them even after half an hour. They were hardened pranksters, practically professionals; that meant they could not laugh in public at their own pranks, no matter how massive or hilarious they were.  _Especially_  when said prank was as grand as unleashing their Weasley Wildfire Whiz-Bangs in the middle of the Great Hall during dinner. Revealing their displeasure with Dumbledore getting run out of the castle, irritating Umbridge, and showcasing a product that would really get their business taking off; this one trick did them all.

"Weasleys!"

Of course, pulling something like this was also bound to get them in trouble. If it had been a professor coming after them, they probably would have just given up and come along quietly to the new Headmistress's office – that was, after all, the next stage of their plan – but no, it was just Filch. They and the caretaker had been at odds since their first year, when he had hauled them off for playing just a little, tiny prank on a Hufflepuff and threatened to chain them up in the dungeons for the night. The twins looked at each other, and then they ran.

They weren't blood purists or bigots, but really, Filch was a Squib. What did he think he could do to catch them?

"What are you waiting for?" Filch demanded, confusing them both. "Get them!"

George suddenly felt his feet clap together. He tripped to lay sprawled against the stone floor, and a strong force began dragging him toward the caretaker. Ahead of him, Fred fell as well, and George flipped himself over to look at Filch. How had the man gotten magic?!

The house-elf standing at Filch's side caught him staring and shrugged. The little elves were always happy to have students pop in the kitchens for a snack, and George thought he and Fred had established a good rapport with them. Apparently it was not quite as good as he thought if they were willing to turn against the brothers this quickly.

"I've got you this time, you little monsters," the Squib hissed as they were lifted up in the air by their ankles to dangle upside down. Filch turned and walked back the way he had come, Fred and George bobbing along behind him. "No more running away with you, oh no. The Headmistress gave me an elf of my very own to make sure you blighters can't just get away whenever you want anymore. Maybe she'll even reinstate the old punishments; I've kept the chains nicely oiled just in case Dumbledore ever got some sense, but Marchbanks seems like she's got a good head on her shoulders."

The wrinkled old man continued with his threats and bluster the whole way to the Headmaster's Tower, but the twins just tuned him out and waved to the various teens they passed. He had been saying the same things year after year after year; they had lost all their terror a long time ago.

When they reached the gargoyle that stood guard over the stairs to the office, Filch surprisingly did not speak a password but instead fished about in his pockets. A small stone circle was in his hand, and as soon as he held it to the gargoyle's nose, the beast slid out of the way. Up the stairs they went, and then Filch opened the door.

George had only been in this room once, several years previously, but he still remembered what it looked like when Dumbledore had resided there: thin-legged tables scattered throughout the free space, with all manner of silver devices spinning and smoking and singing on the tops. A sturdy perch that Fawkes would sit upon to consider them with his too-wise eyes. A glass bowl full of delicious candies that everyone was free to take from.

In the thirty or so hours that Marchbanks had been Headmistress, all that joy and whimsy had somehow already been sucked out. Several stacks of parchment sat tall on the desk, and a shallow stone basin brimming with light had been placed on one corner. Marchbanks held up a hand as she finished jotting something down, and then she looked up. "Mr. Filch, I take it these are the perpetrators of that disruption I heard coming from downstairs earlier?"

George stared; Marchbanks had not even been there? Dumbledore more often than not took dinner in the Great Hall, and now not only had this witch stolen his position from him, she did not even have the decency to pretend to follow the protocol he had put in place? What was next, publicly promoting Pureblood propaganda in the hallways? That seemed to be the way this takeover, this usurpation, was headed!

"They are. The Weasley twins have been causing trouble ever since they got here. One time they even—"

"I'm sorry, but I don't have time to hear about all their misdeeds just now," the old witch said with a tight smile. "Go ahead and set them down." Filch nodded to the elf, and Fred and George both groaned when their heads impacted the hard stone floor. "I didn't say  _drop_ them. Please, Mr. Filch, do use a little sense."

Filch looked at the ground and muttered, "Yes, Headmistress."

"As long as we understand one another. You may go." Man and elf walked out the door, and as soon as it was closed, Marchbanks sighed. "What an odious little man. Well? Stand up, boys, unless you'd really prefer to lie on the floor for an hour."

They exchanged questioning glances and stood, finding the two chairs in front of her already pushed out for them. "So," Marchbanks began, setting her quill on the desk and brushing an ink-stained lock of white hair out of her face, "would you like to tell me just why you thought it was a good idea to set off a store-load of fireworks in the middle of dinner?"

"Because it was funny?" Fred said flippantly.

"Funny?" Marchbanks did not sound at all amused, and she picked up a long roll of parchment the desktop and unfurled it. "This is the initial list of people who were injured by your so-called prank. Do you really find burning an eleven-year-old's face enough to send him to the hospital wing to be funny?" They looked down at their feet; they hadn't meant to hurt anybody, just cause a ruckus. "And here I thought you would have learned that lesson after your second year here."

George's head shot up. "We didn't know she was going to get hurt like that! It was just a mistake!"

"Yes,  _that_  time was a mistake, but when you're aware of the consequences and do the same thing again anyway? It's not a mistake anymore." Marchbanks shook her head and leaned back. "Do you have anything to say for yourselves?"

For the first time in a long while, the brothers were of different minds; George opened his mouth to respond, but Fred shook his head and bit out, "No, Headmistress."

Marchbanks looked at George expectantly, but he pressed his lips tight together and shook his head, as well. The Weasley Twins did not show division, not to others. Finally, she seemed to get tired of waiting. "If you have nothing to offer in defense of your actions, then I see no reason to give you leniency. You two will spend every evening for the next four weeks in detention, where you will assist Madam Pomfrey with any and all tasks she gives you. If she tires of you before your punishment is over, you'll then work with Professor Grubbly-Plank cleaning up after the animals. I'm also taking a hundred points from Gryffindor; maybe your housemates' reaction will make you consider the consequences of your actions. If you continue these ill-planned and disruptive pranks, however, I will be forced to take more drastic measures. This is a school, not a circus," she hissed in a tone much like their mother always used when the subject of their business was brought up. "You are dismissed."

Fred stormed out the door, and just a few steps behind him came George. "What was that all about? We were going to make a stand about what they did to Dumbledore—"

"Do you think she would have listened?" Fred demanded. "She already made up her mind about that, just like she made up her mind about us. It was a stupid plan, anyway; there's no way the Ministry would pick someone who wasn't a toady to replace him."

"So that's it? We just do nothing?" They had put way too much planning into this to drop it all now. George even had a speech planned out that, if they were lucky and pulled it off right, might have convinced Marchbanks to look back on what she and the Ministry had done and realize their mistake. Some of the other students were falling for the lies that Dumbledore had somehow 'deserved' to be run out of the castle, but they were Weasleys. They knew better than that, not that anyone else really had an excuse. This was  _Dumbledore_  they were talking about, the Leader of the Light! Yet they were really supposed to believe he had used Memory Charms on them? That was like… like saying that Merlin would have made a good Slytherin!

Fred shook his head. "No, we're not going to do nothing. That would be the same as admitting defeat. No," he said, a mad gleam entering his eyes, "we're going to escalate. We've always held back, never caused any real mayhem. I say we do just that. The Ministry chased Dumbledore away because they didn't want to hear what he was saying, and then they put a stooge in his place. I say we make them regret that."

"That might just work," he whispered, his brother's fervor catching. "There's no real point in sticking around, anyway. Not like NEWTs are going to do us any good. And with Dumbledore gone and the Ministry taking over to turn everyone into good little followers…"

"Yep."

They shared matching grins. "Then I reckon a bit of mayhem is exactly what our new Headmistress deserves."

* * *

**I've added a little puzzle to this chapter for all of you discerning readers and proofreaders out there; anyone who can find the hidden message gets one of Tracey's cookies (they're soft and gooey and oh so yummy!). Bonus points if you figure out the source of the name "William Milner".**

**Oh, boy. Unfortunately for Fred and George, they (and the rest of the Light) are reading from the canon playbook, where a case could be made for the Ministry illegally seizing Dumbledore's position. Here, though? The situation is a** _**little** _ **bit different.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	38. Murder is the Best Solution

**Several people were able to find the message – "help me" – I hid in Rita's article last chapter; I hope you guys enjoyed the reminder of how much horror I put in this story on the sly. No one figured out the source of William Milner, but I wasn't really expecting anyone to get that without being in my head.** _**William** _ **Beecher Scoville and Brenda** _**Milner** _ **were the neuroscientists who discovered that the hippocampus was involved in the formation of memories (hence "Memoratory", memory and oratory).**

**Next chapter may or may not be delayed. I take my second board exam in two weeks, so I don't know yet if that weekend will be spent writing or cramming.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did Muggleborn and Muggle-raised kids immediately and uniformly adopt swearing to Merlin, seemingly without any reservations at all? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 38  
** **Murder is the Best Solution**

There were many differences between the magical and Muggle worlds, but it was the little things that still caught Lily off-guard sometimes. Having grown up in a Catholic household, appellations to Merlin occasionally sounded wrong to her ears even after twenty-five years, and she knew she was considered strange for refusing to go out into the various magical communities on Sundays. The Sabbath wizards generally did not keep holy. This was a rare exception, and she was only going along with it because it was the one day Jenny said she could meet.

A witch at the other end of the pub glanced her way, and her heart skipped a few beats before the stranger dismissed Lily and turned back to her dinner. She knew intellectually that she had nothing to worry about; it was not a crime to be out in public, and at Jenny's strongly worded request she had covered herself in a glamour of an utterly unremarkable brunette. The problem was that very precaution had apparently told her instincts to be on the lookout for anything dangerous. If her daughter did not arrive soon, her heart might just give out before they had a chance to talk.

"Margaret, there you are! I almost thought you'd forgotten we were supposed to get together tonight."

A hand clapped down on her shoulder, and Lily looked up into unfamiliar eyes. Had she accidentally made her illusion look like a real person, someone who was supposed to be at the Three Broomsticks? That would be just her luck. "I'm sorry, sir, but I think you have me confused for someone else—"

His laugh cut her off. "I know it's been years since we last saw each other, but surely I don't look that different." The dirty-blond wizard flicked his eyes at their surroundings and hissed so softly that she could barely make it out, "Just shut up and play along." Her eyes widened – what was going on?! – but before she could say anything or try to get someone's attention, the strange man grabbed her right elbow and pulled her out of the chair. Shifting so he was no longer holding her up but instead had her wand arm pinned against his side, he dragged her toward the stairwell that led to the pub's private rooms.

Lily opened her mouth to scream for help, but not a peep emerged. He had silenced her!

They turned the corner, and now that they were out of the crowd's sight he inexplicably let her go with an irritated huff. This was certainly the strangest kidnapping she had ever imagined! "By the Baron, Lily, it's like you know nothing of subterfuge."

Confused by the strange oath, it took her a moment to realize what else had been said. "You know who I am?" The man gave her a look, and the pieces finally connected. "Wait, Jenn-ifer?"

If her daughter had noticed the verbal stumble on her name, she chose to ignore it. "How many other people were you planning to meet today? Did you think when I said you shouldn't look like yourself that I was just going to waltz inside with my natural appearance? That would completely ruin the point of sneaking out of the castle in the first place." She pulled open the door leading into the second of Rosmerta's private rooms, and though Lily could not see her face, she just knew her daughter was rolling her – his? – hazel eyes.

"Well, I didn't— How did you even know who I was?!"

"Everyone has their talents; this is one of mine." Nodding at the serving girl whom they had interrupted setting the table with a couple of goblets and a basket of spiced flatbreads, Jenny waited until they were again alone before adding, "You don't grow up blind without picking up a few tricks here and there."

Rather than respond to that – because really, what was there to say? – Lily waved her wand in front of her face to dispel her glamour. She expected Jenny to do the same, but instead the younger witch rapped her own wand against her head. The masculine face bubbled and flowed, melting back into her daughter's appearance while she stared in shocked disbelief. Glamours were easy and, more importantly, safe; messing up on one of those was of no consequence. But this? "You used human transfiguration on yourself?!" she demanded in a shriek. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?! All it takes is one mistake and you could be disfigured for life, maybe even die!"

"Your concern is unnecessary and unwanted," Jenny replied with a haughty sneer as she shrunk her unadorned blue robe to fit her smaller frame. "I may not be a Metamorphmagus, but I'm still a Black, and our blood carries with it a tremendous capacity for self-transformation. How else do you think Sirius and your husband were able to become Animagi, an ability few wizards can accomplish, before they even passed their OWLs? Frankly, it's more of a surprise that Pettigrew was able to keep up with them, especially with how Sirius talks about his skills or lack thereof.

"Now," the girl said, pouring herself a goblet of butterbeer while Lily took a few seconds to soothe her frantic heart, which was really only to be expected upon learning that her daughter was playing with magics far beyond her level, "what made it so important that we meet as soon as humanly possible?"

"Dumbledore."

For some reason, a sharp grin crossed Jenny's face. "The old goat has been bleating to the Order about the unfairness of the world, I take it?"

"Jennifer!" she scolded. "How could you say something like that?"

"Because I don't worship the ground he walks on."

"He has made mistakes, I'll grant you that," she replied slowly, "and especially with you. But even if you have reasons to dislike him, he's still the man in charge of the Light, and he's our best, our only hope to defeat Voldemort."

Jenny rolled her eyes and tossed her hair back. "Except you've missed the tiny detail that  _I'm not Light_. I am the heiress of traditionally the most influential Dark House in the Wizengamot, and my personal politics lean more toward Neutral than anything." She leaned back in her chair, indifferent to Lily's scandalized expression, and rolled her glass between her palms. "Either way, I see no reason to lament his fall from grace."

"Your politics won't matter if Voldemort wins," Lily reminded her, holding back a sigh. Of course, she had forgotten that Jenny had such a cynical view of the world that even Ebenezer Scrooge would have thought her uncharitable. It was too bad that Mind Healers worked exclusively with brain trauma and magics that affected the mind; Jenny desperately needed to visit a therapist. She would be so much happier if she could just rid herself of all this baggage!

"Have you ever met Amelia Bones?" Reluctantly, Lily nodded. Bones was a good director of the DMLE, she would not deny that, but as Minister? Fudge might have been a weak man, but Bones needed someone who would restrain her excesses. She was cast from much the same mold as Bartemius Crouch, at least when it came to permitting and even encouraging excessive force. "If I had to pick which of the two I would support in this war, it would be her without a doubt every single time. At least she won't let the guilty walk free."

"No, she'd just have them killed in a firefight." Jenny quirked an eyebrow at her retort, almost as if confused why that was a problem. "You were the one claiming that Dumbledore being powerless was good for the Dark, but Bones's way of fighting this war would see many of those Houses exterminated. We would rather have the Death Eaters rehabilitated, and that can't happen when they're all dead."

As distasteful as it was to side with the Dark Sect, she expected this would be the point that finally got across to Jenny. Her daughter's, for lack of a better term,  _bloodthirstiness_  was still disturbing, however. Even if she were not raised in the Light, to think that someone born to them could be so—

"So Dumbledore watches his enemies go free and instead sticks his supporters in Azkaban for crimes they didn't commit? Yes, I'm certainly going to side with him now."

Lily frowned at the sarcasm practically dripping from Jenny's words. "Sirius's imprisonment was a special circumstance."

"Of course," Jenny agreed in a saccharine voice. "I mean, one person accused of killing another with dark magic? Surely no one else would ever do something like that. And I guess the Death Eaters are so horrible because they use Tripping Jinxes instead of Tickling Charms."

That sigh escaped from her now. She should not have expected Jenny to understand; how could she when she was only born in the closing days of the War? Lily considered voicing that thought for a moment before dismissing it. Jenny would undoubtedly consider it patronizing, just as she herself would have when she was her daughter's age.

"What's been going on at Hogwarts?" she asked, clumsily trying to change the subject. There really were no good segues from their previous conversation. "I heard that something happened to the Weasley twins a couple of days ago, but Molly, their mother, didn't want to talk about it."

"I expect she wouldn't," Jenny replied after a moment's pause. "Two weeks ago, right after Marchbanks took over, they played a prank during dinner that involved setting a few hundred pounds of fireworks off in the Great Hall. Supposedly there were going to be punished for it, but they pulled a couple more that were just as disruptive. Marchbanks got tired of it and expelled them both. Thankfully, she threw them out on their ears before they did anything worth getting the MLEP involved. The most common theory going around is that the stress of the upcoming NEWTs got to them, but their roommates claim that they didn't care about their scores." Leaning back, she added in an extraordinarily bland tone, "And all things considered, I'm starting to wonder if that wasn't just their own way of protesting Dumbledore's removal."

That would certainly explain Molly's reluctance to discuss matters, Lily silently agreed. Hogwarts covered the Ministry's fees for sitting the OWL and NEWT exams, but now that the twins were expelled, they or Molly and Arthur would have to scrape together the galleons for it themselves if Fred and George were ever going to get decent jobs. If Danny tried to pull some foolishness like that, oh how he would regret it.

 _And not just Danny…_  Maternal worries coming to the fore, she gently prodded, "But thankfully you would never do something like that, right?"

"Of course I—" Jaw clacking shut mid-sentence, Jenny's violet eyes narrowed suspiciously. "I am not one who would pull some ill-timed stunt to show my displeasure of the Ministry exercising their authority. You should be more concerned that your son will try to emulate them. After all, your family is close to the Weasleys, are you not?"

"We are, but that doesn't mean I can't worry about you, too," she whispered. "You're still my daughter."

"No, I'm not." Jenny's voice was full of hard finality.

"I-I know we're not officially related anymore, and I understand that you have reasons for not wanting to change that, but—"

"Lady Potter." Lily cringed at the flat tone that title was delivered in, and her expression only deepened when she saw Jenny's smoldering glare. "I am going to say this in such a way that you cannot possibly misunderstand. You. Abandoned. Me," Jenny growled, jabbing the table with each word for emphasis. "I spent my entire life without you around, and at no point in the last, oh,  _ten years_  have I ever thought,  _'If only Mummy and Daddy loved me, everything would be wonderful._ '"

Her 'little girl' voice was ruined by her sneer of disdain, which persisted as she continued, "You seem to be laboring under the misconception that if you talk at me long enough, I will discover some deep-seated need to have my 'mother' in my life. I now suspect that this was the real intention you had when you wrote me to arrange this meeting, to further your goal of developing some maternal-filial relationship like you might have had had you not been such a short-sighted, arrogant fool." Her daughter's bark made Lily flinch. "I will tell you this now so you do not waste my time again: that ship sailed a long,  _long_  time ago, and there is nothing you can ever do to call it back."

"I know that!" she shouted back, dashing tears off her cheeks. "How could I not?! Believe me, there is nothing –  _nothing_  – I would like more than to find some way to go back and undo that decision. Tell James and Dumbledore where they can shove their advice and—"

"What?" Her shouting almost drowned out Jenny's near-whisper, but it was just loud enough that she cut off the torrent of self-flagellation. "What does Dumbledore have to do with any of this?"

Lily had no clue where this sudden burst of curiosity was coming from, but at least the girl's furious expression had dimmed. That could only be a good thing. "He's the one who told us you were a Squib. After that Halloween, we called him over to check on you and Danny. He said that Danny was okay except for his curse scar, but when he examined you, he said that you didn't have any magic. Since you two were practically inseparable, we couldn't say for certain that the accidental magic we had seen hadn't all come from Danny, so we assumed he was right. It was a mistake, I know, but we were a little preoccupied trying to decide what we could do that would be best for… you…"

What happened next was the most horrifying thing Lily had ever witnessed, and she knew it would come back to haunt her in her dreams that night: Jenny's expression suddenly went… blank. Her face, which had previously been cycling through confusion, irritation, and astonishment, smoothed over until not even a single hint of any emotion could be seen; it was as if everything had been locked behind foot-thick steel doors. Even her eyes changed, dilating to the point that thin rims of purple could just barely be found encircling pools of soulless black.

Jenny abruptly stood, almost knocking her chair backward with her jerky movements. "If you will excuse me, Lady Potter," she said mechanically, "I think this discussion is best ended now." Without another word, she turned and began walking toward the door.

Surging to her feet, Lily reached out for her daughter's shoulder. "Jennifer, wait a— Aaargh!"

She yanked her hand back and stared at it in utter shock, tears of pain streaming unnoticed down her cheek. Her entire palm was bright red, small patches of white marking where blisters were sure to come springing up. A mother's and child's magics were complementary, the result of them being connected for nine months; it was a common phenomenon that a hurt or upset child could be soothed by nothing more than his mother's presence. And yet, somehow, Jenny's very aura had  _burned_  her. A rejection stronger than any mere words could express.

The click of the door closing behind her rang loud in the silence.

* * *

"Miss Black? Are you all right?" Filius asked, knocking hard on the door that led into the dueling room. He knew it was her, as they were the only ones who used this room – and honestly, they were probably also the only ones who knew it even existed – but it was the strength of the protective charms on the door that had alerted him to something being dreadfully wrong. He did not have the girl's sensitivity to magic, but the sheer power laid upon the old wood was great enough that even Argus could have felt it.

There was no answer, and he grabbed for the handle. Incredibly, it turned without the slightest hint of resistance. Why had she left the door unlocked but reinforced it to such a ludicrous extent?

He pulled the door open, and the momentary glance he got was enough to answer his question. The room was completely filled with blue and white fire, the wards on the walls literally shrieking under the pressure, and the only clear spot in the entire space was where his student stood screaming in rage and madness. Those unholy flames leapt at him while he stared, and he barely had time to slam the door shut before they consumed him. His forehead fell forward to rest against the hot wood as his stomach rebelled, the vile stench of such concentrated dark magic almost overwhelming him.

After another few seconds, he straightened and wiped the cold sweat from his brow. What had set the girl off, he had no clue, and honestly he wasn't sure he wanted to know. One thought, however, was crystal clear:  _I better come back later_.

* * *

Tracey's hands shook as she folded the letter back up. She should have known this was going to happen; really, she should have. Learning that he would do this to her was not a surprise at all. She still had not expected it.

Standing from the Slytherin table, she did not say a word to anyone as she gathered her things and left. Most of her housemates hated her for her polluted blood, anyway; if she told them what was happening, they would likely cheer him on rather than offer to help her. Of course, it wasn't as if they could help even if they wanted to. He had planned this out to account for every last detail, and there was no course she could see to stop it. Her life was over.

"Tracey!" She slowly turned around, though for all that she was pleased Jen had followed her, it did little to pierce through her depression. The Ravenclaw stared at her with narrowed eyes. "What's wrong?"

Her voice was flat. "Nothing. I'm fine." It was better for Jen not to try banging her head against an immovable object. She had made it clear that she would go to whatever lengths were needed for her friends, but all that would happen now was the girl wasting the Blacks' influence.

Jen's lips thinned, and without warning her hand landed on Tracey's cheek. When it pulled away, tears clung to her fingertips. "Don't lie to me. What. Happened?"

"He…" Tracey held up the letter, her hands still shaking. Taking a deep breath to try calming herself, she explained, "Do you remember how my grandfather offered me three thousand galleons if I abdicated my position as heir? Apparently I didn't move fast enough, and he's now decided to take different measures. I'm…" Her voice broke, and a few more tears escaped. "I'm arranged to be married."

"We both knew that was going to happen eventually," Jen said slowly, "so that can't be all there is to it."

"No, it's not. Mum wrote me as soon as she found out all the details of the contract; Taggle, our house-elf, told her about it, and she went poking around in his study. On the surface, it's fairly standard, but…"

Jen stepped to her side and, their arms now linked together, began guiding her away from the Entrance Hall. "But?"

"He's in his sixties, some business associate of Grandfather's," she whispered, "but if it was just that, I wouldn't have too much of a problem with it. There are plenty of older wizards who'd be happy with a teenage wife. No, it's the clauses at the end that make it so horrible. I will be the official Head of House, no one can change that, but the contract gives my husband the authority to represent me in all political and legal matters. I'd run the family in name only, and with him in charge of the legal stuff, I wouldn't be able to change it. I'll be trapped, and to make things worse, if I die, he gets adopted and becomes the new Lord Davis. This guy has the exact same views as my grandfather; I won't survive my wedding night, and it'll all be nice and legal and no one will care." A sob tore its way free of her throat, and she spun Jen around and threw herself at her friend. "I don't know what to do!"

Jen's arms wrapped around her tightly. "No matter how bad things get, there is always,  _always_  a way out," the girl whispered in her ear. "My mentor gave me this advice a long time ago, and it has never been wrong before. This will be no different. How long do you have before this contract goes into effect?"

"I'm getting married on the first day it's permitted. Happy seventeenth birthday to me," she croaked out with a strangled, mocking chuckle.

"Then we have time." A short hum echoed in Jen's throat as an idea came to her. "Your grandfather isn't going to file this contract until your sixteenth birthday, is he?"

"No, but only because the Ministry considers all marriage contracts submitted before then to be unenforceable. You can bet it'll be the first bit of mail the Ministry receives on my birthday, though," she grumbled.

Jen laughed then.  _Laughed_ , like all their problems had been solved! "Then that's the solution. Just leave this to me."

"Jen, no!" She pulled out of her friend's embrace and shook her head desperately. "You can't fight this. Your House is powerful, but do you think the Wizengamot is going to accept you interfering in another House's internal matters? All that'll happen is—"

A finger came to rest on her lips, and Tracey's eyes flicked to Jen's arm and then to her face. The other girl's hands then reached for hers and gripped them gently. "Tracey, do you trust me?"

Tracey barely kept from laughing hysterically. Hadn't she asked something along those same lines earlier this year, whether Jen was trustworthy with her secrets? And hadn't Jen proved to be as good as her word? "Yes."

"Then don't worry. You'll be fine." A cold glint appeared in Jen's eyes, and Tracey was not quite sure whether she liked it or not. If it somehow got her out of this, though? Right now, she would take whatever help she could get. "I will take care of everything."

* * *

The clock struck two, and green flames surged from the fireplace as Jen stepped out. Her fury, carefully banked ever since Tracey had come to her a week previously, threatened to escape its bonds and course through her veins, and she took a moment to calm the beast. She could not afford to use dark magic here. This had to be perfect.

"Miss?" She turned to the side to look at the house-elf that was standing nervously in the doorway. "It bes late at night, miss, and Taggle thinks no one supposed to bes here right now. Yous needs to come back in the morning."

The smile she gave the little servant was unlikely to be as comforting as she wanted. "Hello, Taggle. Tracey told me quite a bit about you."

"Oh, yous bes friends with Miss Tracey?" the elf asked, his expression brightening considerably. "But she bes up at school right now. She not here."

She nodded. "I know that, but she told me some disturbing things that were going on here that could hurt her. Things her mother told her, and that you told her mother." The elf winced and looked away. "You love them very much, don't you?"

"Taggle does," the elf whispered. "Theys don't yell at Taggle or bes mean when Taggle makes mistakes. Theys always really nice."

"I know. Tracey is a good friend to me, too. But now she's in trouble." Taggle nodded sadly. "And since she is so good to me, she deserves me being good to her. I'm here to make her problem go away."

"Yous can do that?"

"Yes, I can, but I need your help to do it." Taggle's head bobbed up and down excitedly, and Jen hid a smile. She had thought very carefully about how she was going to phrase her discussion with the elf, and though Tracey did not know it, the Slytherin had been a great help in piecing together a mental image of how he behaved. "You see, no one can know that I was here, but since you're such a good and devoted elf"—Taggle blushed at the compliment—"if someone orders you to tell the truth, you'll have to tell them who I am. For me to help Tracey, I have to make sure you don't remember. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"You needs to Obliviesiviate Taggle."

She grinned at the little elf. Not only had Taggle figured out what was needed, he showed no fear of it. Tracey was indeed lucky to have such an elf looking out for her. "That's right. I promise that it won't hurt you even a little bit. Is that all right?"

This was the hardest part of her job. House-elves had magic very different from a human's, and one of their idiosyncrasies was that their minds could not be affected without their consent. An elf's master could get around that by commanding the elf to give consent, but as Jen was not a Davis, she did not have that convenient loophole. She held her breath for just a second, worried about having to execute her plan B. Tracey would not be pleased if she had to take that course of action.

But after brief consideration, Taggle nodded. "Okays. If it bes helping Miss Tracey and Miss Mary."

"Thank you." She waved her hand, sending Taggle into a deep sleep and gently lowering the tiny body to the floor, and then she erased their entire conversation from his mind.  _So that's part one done_ , she thought to herself as she walked toward the visible stairwell. Pulling a chain from her pocket, she watched the glass ball at the end rise to point up and to the left.  _Now comes the easy stuff_.

Following her tracking charm, she silently walked the halls until she came to a decorated door. Jen pushed it open and peered inside to find her quarry right where he was supposed to be. Wallace Davis did not wake when she closed the door, but he did as soon as she snapped her fingers.

Though admittedly, that probably had more to do with the body-bind she placed upon him than the sound.

Only Wallace's eyes could move within her spell, and it did not take long for them to alight on her. "Good morning," she said to Tracey's grandfather in a cheery voice. "You probably remember me, but just in case, I'm Jen Black. Tracey's best friend."

His gaze radiated confusion.

"She told me you've been a bad, bad boy," she continued as though speaking to a young child. The finger she wagged at his face only furthered the comparison. "Arranging her marriage with an old pal of yours, and then making it so she couldn't do anything about it. Tsk tsk."

He seemed to understand what she was talking about now, and his struggles to escape her binding redoubled. Jen rolled her eyes and sat on the edge of his bed. "Now, I haven't seen the contract myself, but just from what I've heard about it, I have to commend you. You did your best to cut off any way Tracey could get out from under it, and you did it so very well. In the end, I could only think of one way to help her, even if it was also the first idea that popped in my head.

"You see," she whispered, leaning in conspiratorially, "the only problem with your plan? You have to be alive on Tracey's sixteenth birthday to file the contract." She smiled nastily. "If, however, something  _unfortunate_ happened to you before then, the whole thing comes tumbling down. Any legal document submitted by a Head of House posthumously is automatically rendered invalid without his successor's signature, and as soon as you die, Tracey becomes Lady Davis. Oh, she'll need a regent until she turns seventeen, but she gets to pick who that is all on her own, and no one will be able to enter her into any contracts without her express consent. And do you really think she would sign the contract you've so carefully written up that would all but sell her into slavery to her husband?" She shook her head. "I don't think so, either."

Ignoring Wallace's ineffectual spasms, Jen laid her hand upon his shirtless chest. "Now I could just kill you with any number of spells, but I don't want it to be obvious that you were murdered. That would lead to an investigation, and we don't want that, now do we? Thankfully, it's well-known that you have the so-called Black Curse," she added as she flicked a lock of his hair, already completely white despite seventy-two being only middle-aged for most wizards, "so no one is going to question the obvious too much if you die in your sleep."

Magic, carefully kept neutral in alignment just for this purpose, shot from her hand and wrapped around his heart. Her spell squeezed, each pulse tightening the bands of energy. After five, his heart sped up to compensate for the restriction; after ten, it was working as hard as it could to keep his blood flowing.

After thirty, Wallace's heart did not have room to beat at all.

She leaned closer to Wallace's face, smiling as she watched the light behind his eyes begin to dim. "And besides, if I had killed you immediately, we wouldn't have had the chance for this pleasant little chat. Goodbye, Wallace Davis."

Three minutes after casting her spell, Jen nodded to herself and stood. Tracey was safe now. Opening the bedroom door, she reoriented herself and began the walk back to the fireplace. The Floo Network was monitored, but the Leaky Cauldron's fireplace was known to be available for public use at any time for those who had paid for a room for the night. She had not done so, merely broken into the pub, but just in case there was an investigation, the DMLE would be too busy questioning the Cauldron's residents to bother going after Tracey. It was perfect.

A door further down the hall opened, and a man stepped out while rubbing his eyes. His hand dropped, and then his gaze met hers.

Thankfully, only one of them knew that. Immediately after the strange man walked out, she had diverted what little available light there was coming from the wall sconces around her. The utter lack of light blinded her once again, but through her sonar she could feel him slowly walking her way and muttering to himself.

She took a soft step away from him and pressed her back against the wall, holding her breath so the only half-awake man would not hear her as he walked past and investigate. Her magical sense was wonderful – she would never deny that – and it had served her well as her primary method of navigation for ten years, but it did have one flaw: it could not penetrate solid barriers like walls and doors. Only in Grimmauld Place did it give her total awareness like that.

Normally, that weakness was a non-issue, but here that lack of warning could all too easily have given her presence away. She could have wrapped her invisibility around herself immediately after she finished Wallace off, she supposed, but this was the home stretch, not to mention the first point it was a viable option. House-elves could see through invisibility cloaks and Disillusionment Charms, and while her own spell worked by a completely different method, she had been leery of testing it; if she were caught, Taggle would have had much less reason to trust her claims that she was a friend of Tracey's and instead might have roused the rest of the household. Once he was unconscious, she could have used it, but by then she knew there was no one in the hallway to catch her, and remaining unseen would have taken away from ensuring that Wallace knew exactly why he was going to die that night.

 _Although now that I think back on it, why is it that Grimmauld Place's wards accepted me so quickly?_ , she wondered silently. _At first I thought it was because I'm Sirius's, and therefore House Black's, heir, but he told me that I had never been there, and later I needed to be keyed in to give me influence over the wards. And while yes, I was already a descendant of the Blacks through James, that's still three generations between Dorea Potter and me. I would have expected the recognition to be diluted somewhat by then, but my connection to the house was no clearer when the blood adoption process finished than it was when I first entered_.

Shrugging, she followed in the man's tracks for a few meters until he passed the staircase, though rather than trust the stairs not to alert him she thrust her left hand upward and conjured the personal gravity well she relied on for her flight. She frowned as she noticed for the first time how unwieldy it was in such close quarters; every other time she had used it, she either had plenty of space in which to move in a straight line or only needed it as a glorified hover charm. It was not, however, that practical for drifting down a flight of stairs at less than free fall speeds.  _Something else to work on when I get a chance_.

Eventually she reached the foyer, and from there it was a short walk back to the fireplace. Giving the hallway one last sweep, she smiled to herself as she let her invisibility drop and threw a handful of Floo powder into the fireplace.

 _And no one will ever know_.

* * *

**Silently Watches out.**


	39. Aftermath

**"Was that Tracey's dad?":**  I believe I mentioned it explicitly in the last book, or at a minimum heavily implied it, but Tracey's father is long dead. It's the entire reason she is House Davis's heir while her grandfather is the Head; if he was still alive,  _he_  would be the heir.

**Because this is a serial, I do my best not to go back and make major changes to previous updates. But since** _**so many** _ **of you complained about how chapter 38 ended – all right, yes, and brought up valid points in the process – I've gone against my rule and retooled the second half of that scene. Honestly, I just didn't think about Jen's invisibility when I wrote it the first time.**

**It's also part of the reason you're getting a short chapter this week.**

**Disclaimer:**  Were the atrocities of Wizarding Britain's justice system – including the summary execution of Barty Crouch, Jr., and Harry being tried as an adult for what was a crime that by definition could only be committed by juveniles – completely ignored by everyone, including the Muggleborn and Muggle-raised among the characters? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 39  
** **Aftermath**

"Come on, Jen. Say  _'aaaah'_."

Rolling her eyes, Jen indulged Luna's whimsy and opened her mouth wide enough for her girlfriend to toss the honey-dipped grape inside. "I'm pretty sure this is what parents are referring to when they tell their kids not to play with their food," she said around the piece of fruit.

"I wouldn't know. Mummy and Daddy never told me anything like that." She licked the drizzle of honey off her finger and frowned. "Wait, no, she did tell me something like that. Kind of." Pouting cutely, she turned to Jen and asked, "Is it the same thing to tell me that food belongs on the table and not the ceiling?"

"How  _old_  were you?"

Matching Jen's disbelieving expression with one of absolute innocence, the blonde answered, "Six, maybe seven. Accidental magic introduced me to the wonders of levitation and Sticking Charms rather early."

She laughed and caught hold of the girl's shoulders, then pulled the blonde closer so she could give Luna a peck on the lips. "There are days I wonder who had the stranger childhood, and then you come up with something like  _that_."

Luna gave her a bright smile and lowered herself to lie completely on top of Jen, the platter of finger foods momentarily forgotten. "Why? What were you doing when you were that age?"

 _Learning dark magic from a Voodoo witch, twirling around a stripper pole, spreading my legs for the clients in the upstairs rooms_. "Oh, you know. The usual kid stuff."

"Not really a competition if that's all, is it?" The blonde pulled away, her smile sad and her silver eyes shadowed. "I can tell when you're lying to make me feel better, you know. If you don't want to talk to me about something, you can just say so."

Dropping her head onto the armrest of the old couch they lay upon, Jen breathed out a tired sigh. "Sorry, Luna. It's just…" It was a lot of things, really, but what was truly preying on her mind lately was the revelation Lily had unknowingly dropped on her. For years and years, she had known without a single doubt that everything wrong in her life could ultimately be traced back to her birth parents. The instant James and Lily left her on the Dursleys' doorstep, her whole world had turned to shit, and only through her own efforts, her blood and sweat and tears, had she been able to turn things around.

Well, she thought with a mirthless smile, her and other people's blood. Mostly theirs.

This year had therefore been one of extremely unpleasant surprises. Elsie stumbled onto her broken, bleeding form not because the world was finally making up for its crimes against her but because the old woman had been ordered there by nothing less than Death himself. When she sacrificed her faulty magical core for a direct connection to the world's magic, a ritual that before her success had been uniformly suicide, it was nothing special about her magic or her determination that let her survive but instead because she had the dumb luck to be named in a prophecy as one of the two individuals who could defeat Voldemort. And now she learned that the entire reason her core had been unstable in the first place was because she had been sabotaged when she was just a baby by an old goat who thought he knew better than everyone else.

 _And to make things worse_ , she thought with a sigh,  _I can't even go up to him and express my displeasure personally like I can to the others_. She had written Cissy a letter asking where Dumbledore had scuttled off to now that he no longer had Hogwarts to serve as his throne, but her aunt was less than helpful. The disgraced former headmaster had retreated to some bolthole no one knew the location of and only ventured forth to attend the Order meetings. That these meetings routinely devolved from possible strategies to find Voldemort into griping about how the Ministry was becoming the new enemy only made her irritation that much greater.

Luna, however, needed to know none of that, but the need for secrecy had done little to mask her melancholy. Now she had to come up with some excuse for her recent mood swing. Thoughts of the Dursleys melded with the story she had told her friends, and she said, "It's stupid, I know, but my foster family – the people my mother left me with, who later abandoned me in London? I found out they died not too long ago."

"Oh, Jen." The blonde reached up and gently brushed her fingertips along Jen's cheek. "How?"

"A house fire. I know I shouldn't be mulling over it like this, not after what they did to me, but I can't help it." And that was really a good bit of advice, she realized. For the last couple of weeks, she had been questioning who deserved more of her ire and blame. Was it James and Lily, who had made the choices that wound up with her being homeless, blind, and raped? Or was it Dumbledore, who crippled her magic because he was afraid of what she could become and set this whole debacle in motion?

 _And this whole time, the answer has been in front of me. Just let my rage burn hotter until it is enough to reduce all three of them to ash_.

A fingertip poked the corner of her mouth. "No frowning," Luna commanded. "I went to all the trouble of putting this little picnic-y thing together for us, and you aren't going to ruin it with sad thoughts. Now smile."

"I know one thing that will make me smile." The younger Raven rolled her eyes in faux exasperation, but she still grinned when Jen lifted her head for another kiss. Her hands slid down Luna's back and over her waist, coming to rest on the two soft mounds that—

The door banged open. "Jennifer Black!"

Jen broke the kiss and heaved a frustrated sigh. "And a good afternoon to you, too, Tracey. I'd love to stop and chat, but as you can see, I'm a little  _busy_  right now."

"This is more important than you groping your girlfriend."

"Well, I can tell when I'm not wanted," Luna said with an amused smile as she crawled off Jen and stood up, though she did lean over to give her another kiss. "Don't forget that we're supposed to meet Padma and Morag in the library to work on McGonagall's assignment when lunch is over; Tracey, you're welcome to join us if you want. And Jen, seriously, please eat something. You've been picking at your plate for the last week."

The door closed behind her, and Jen met Tracey's glare with a bland expression. "I didn't realize it before, but she can be quite the mother hen, can't she?"

"Didn't know, don't really care," Tracey growled. Her right fist tightened, further crumpling the folded letter inside. "Would you like to tell me exactly what you were doing Sunday night?"

She raised one eyebrow. The only thing she could think of that she had done that day was deal with the Wallace problem, but surely that would not have put Tracey in such a foul mood. "You've told me before that you don't want the details about what Luna and I get up to in bed."

"Ha ha, you're bloody hilarious," the Slytherin bit out sarcastically. "Want to hear something else funny? I got a letter today from the Ministry." She brandished the folded parchment like a sword. "Apparently, my grandfather passed away Sunday night, early yesterday morning. Heart attack."

"Your grandfather passed away?" she asked in an innocent voice. "That's so terrible; you have my condolences. And since we both know you hated the old bastard and couldn't wait until he finally dropped dead so you could be the Head of your family, you also have my congratulations." She swished her hand, sliding the table over to the wall and conjuring a new one, this one with two champagne flutes and an unopened bottle of wine. Giving Tracey a conspiratorial wink, she said, "I know what you're thinking; a prefect shouldn't be encouraging students to break the rules, but as this is a special occas—"

" _Except_  for one small problem," Tracey cut in, raising her voice to talk over Jen. "He's never had any problems with his heart!"

Jen shrugged. "Perhaps it was a sudden deterioration? Thanks to the 'Black Curse', he was aging at the same rate as a Muggle. It wouldn't be unheard of for this to happen."

"Or it was something besides a heart attack that killed him." Tracey crossed her arms and stared into Jen's eyes. "Have any ideas what that could be?"

"Who am I to gainsay the investigators who ruled his death due to natural causes?"

"Damn it, Jen!" the other girl snapped. "We both know what really happened. You snuck into my house and  _murdered_  my grandfather! How, I don't now, but there is no way his death makes sense unless it was foul play. I knew, I  _knew_  I should have been wary when you said that you would  _'take care of it'_ , but that's on me." Tracey exhaled in a huge huff. "All I want to know right now is why. Why would you do something like this to me?"

Jen let the fake enthusiasm fade away. "I don't know; maybe because a certain someone came to me after finding out that he planned to sell her into a marriage where, in her own words, she would not survive her wedding night? Do you perchance remember that? He presented a problem, so I fixed it. I believe that means I was doing this  _for_  you rather than to you."

"But he was still my grandfather! You had no right!" Tracey roared.

"Oh, spare me the dramatics!" She stood and shot her friend an unimpressed look. "Look me in the eye and tell me that you actually give a damn about his death, that your issue with this is something more than you feel it's an obligation you have to see through."

Tracey glared harder but said nothing.

"Didn't think so." She shook her head. "I truly don't understand where this façade of betrayed outrage is coming from. No," she said when Tracey opened her mouth to argue, "you wanted to be honest, so let's be honest. You hated him, told me you couldn't wait for him to die. And then with that contract of his, it was guaranteed that you were going to lose your life on your seventeenth birthday unless he lost his before your sixteenth. Did I misunderstand your complaints when in fact you would have been happy to die instead of him?" Jen rolled her eyes. "He was already old, anyway; I doubt he would have lived long beyond your marriage. I just gave him a little help, that's all."

"That wasn't your decision to make!"

"Fine, then report me!" Jen shouted back, temper stretched to its breaking point. If this was really how she was going to be thanked, Tracey would not have to worry about her doing anything nice for her in the future. "Go to the DMLE and tell them what I did. You have my word that I'll give them the pure, undiluted truth when they haul me in for questioning, and I won't make a single protest when they sentence me to Azkaban. It'll only be a hundred-year sentence, maybe forty or fifty with good behavior." Tracey's eyes dropped to the floor, and Jen walked around the table to stand at her side. "Will that soothe your conscience, make you feel that justice has been served?"

The Slytherin ground her teeth together for several seconds before she whispered, "No."

"I thought not." Reaching out with one hand, she lifted her best friend's chin. "It's okay to be honest with yourself about this. You aren't truly upset at me for what I did. Your grandfather – all your family, really – mistreated you your whole life, but now he's dead and you're in charge. In one day, your fortunes have completely reversed." She pulled Tracey into a one-armed hug. "You're happy that he's dead, you're guilty that you feel that way when you know you're supposed to feel the opposite, and you're scared about what that says about you."

"And what does it say about me?" Tracey asked reluctantly.

Jen thought for a moment on the best way to phrase what she had in mind. "It says that even the nicest, gentlest people can only be pushed so far before they fight back."

"Flattery will get you nowhere." Pulling herself out of the embrace, Tracey said, "This, what you did? All the rationalizing in the world won't change the fact that it was evil."

"If you want to look at the world in nothing but black and white, you are correct," she agreed easily. Tracey did not know, would never know, that this was far from the worst act she had ever committed. "I, however, have always felt that nuance and circumstance are just as important. Killing a decent, innocent man is evil, but what about killing a man who abused a child her entire life for no more reason than he did not approve of who his son married, especially when doing nothing would have led to the murder of that same child? Is that the same, or does the child's safety take priority over his own survival in this instance? And if the child is more important, isn't protecting her at all costs the right and moral thing to do?"

"Don't call me a child," Tracey eventually grumbled, pointedly ignoring the question.

"My apologies." When the other girl said nothing, she smirked the tiniest bit and nudged her. "Besides, you could say I was just returning a favor."

"I don't want to know what you mean, do I?"

Jen dismissed her friend's concern with a wave of her hand. "Oh, it's nothing so terrible. It's actually rather funny. You see, back in the fourteenth century, the Head of the Blacks had two children – a son named Leo and a daughter named Lacerta – who hated each other. Leo at one point apparently threatened his sister that if he became Lord Black before their father married her off, he would find the worst possible candidate he could, even if he had to pick a homeless wretch in the Muggle world, and give her away so the rest of her life would be a never-ending nightmare." Pausing a moment, she added, "At least, that's how the story goes, but I think some of the details got exaggerated in the retellings. Anyway, shortly after that discussion, Michael Davis, the young, handsome heir of his House, came to call and invited Leo on a casual little hunting trip where they might discuss the possibility of arranging a marriage between Michael and Lacerta."

"I already don't like where this is going," Tracey muttered.

"During this hunt, Michael and Leo wandered off together, and ten minutes later Michael came running back to their attendants to warn them about a wild griffin wandering the woods. His story was that he and Leo had stumbled upon its den, and being a brave and right honorable young man, Leo had sent Michael away while he did battle with the fell beast, ultimately giving up his life so that his new friend might live." Jen grinned craftily. "Ironically, no such griffin was ever found, though the mauled and mangled remains of Leo Black were. A few years later, Leo and Lacerta's father passed away, and during Lacerta's party after her confirmation, who should be found escorting Lacerta's best friend but Michael Davis, who had always before admired the young lady from afar. They later went on to be married, with Lacerta Black serving as the maid of honor."

"Your entire family is awful."

"Oh, I'm not going to argue that. I just wanted to let you know that having a friend get rid of the obstacles in one's way is not exactly new to our families' relationship." Linking their arms together, she asked, "Are you still mad at me?"

"Yes."

"That doesn't sound very sure to me." Tracey's reply had been the very essence of doubt, and now the girl turned away at the jibe. "Fine, but do you appreciate the outcome, at least?"

A moment's hesitation, then, "Yes."

Jen smiled in satisfied victory. "So am I forgiven?"

"…I suppose."

"And you thought calling you kind and gentle was empty flattery," she laughed. Dragging Tracey onto the couch, she waved her hand. "Now I need to ask you for a favor."

Her friend eyed her suspiciously. "What?"

She glanced pointedly at the table before them. The platter of breads and cheese and fruit sat enticingly in the middle, and the champagne had had its cork vanished and been poured into the two glasses. "Help me eat this so I can get Luna to stop trying to stuff food into me until I'm as big around as Hagrid?"

"Hmm, no." Tracey smirked at her exaggeratedly aghast expression. "I'm still mad at you, remember, and you're the one dating Lovegood. You get to suffer her wrath on your own."

* * *

The next morning proved things would not be quite as easy as they hoped.

Jen glanced up from her breakfast, a frown growing on her face. The range of her sonar more than covered the entirety of the Great Hall, so she always kept some of her attention on the owls that streamed into the room each morning in case Loki entered carrying mail for her; his magic, imparted and altered by black magic as it had been, was distinctive and immediately recognizable. What had distracted her was not the same, but there was a similarity there.

Perhaps it had to do with the chill touch of dark magic.

She did not have to search long to find it again amongst the flurry of feathers. The magic she felt was connected to an otherwise unremarkable envelope held by the talons of… What in the world? Abandoning all pretense of eating, she devoted her complete focus on what her senses were trying to tell her. The owl carrying the letter was strange. In its head, wings, and much of its body, the magical currents flowed and curled as she would expected, but when they reached its legs, they abruptly twisted into the pattern she usually affiliated with wood.

 _Maybe it has peg legs?_ , she wondered to herself as it fluttered down toward the Slytherin table.  _Except if that were it, there would be a clean break between flesh and wood. This feels like a transition… It must be transfigured. But who would send such a thing?_ Following the simulacrum's path, her eyes widened, and she leapt up from her seat just as it dropped its burden onto its recipient's plate. "Don't touch it!"

Tracey jerked her hands back as though she had been burned.

"Miss Black, what is the meaning of this disturbance?" Snape demanded as he stepped down from the staff table and stormed toward her.

Jen cast a wary eye around them. Most of the nearby Slytherins and Ravenclaws had stopped their conversations to discover what was going on, and although it had yet to spread beyond their two tables, the growing patch of silence meant that would not last for long. Turning back to the dour wizard, she explained, "There was something… off about the owl that delivered that letter. I was just warning her before anything bad happened."

"Something off about the owl," Snape slowly repeated in absolute disbelief. "That's all?"

"I learned long ago to trust my intuition." That, at least, seemed to resonate with him; she had heard that geniuses like Snape often attributed a portion of their talent to a natural ability to understand their particular area of expertise. "If you still doubt me, though, please, check the letter yourself. I would love nothing more than for you to prove me wrong."

He nodded. "Very well, I will.  _Revelio magica_. See? Nothing that—" An aura resembling dark purple smoke faded into view around the white envelope, and his teeth clacked as his mouth slammed shut.

Tracey flicked her eyes between Jen, Snape, and the letter. "Professor? What does that mean?"

"It means, Miss Davis, that she did indeed just save your life," he finally answered. "That particular result signifies a lethal curse. The questions now are what it is and who sent it to you?"

"The second is obvious once you have all the information," Jen said, giving Tracey a meaningful look. The brunette's face paled when the underlying message sank in; she had mentioned before that her entire family, not just Wallace, hated her for her 'polluted' blood, and now that she was their Head of House, she would be in a position to punish them for it. Clearly someone wanted to make her the shortest-reigning Lady Davis in history. "As for the first…"

That was the sticking point. She had never encountered this particular spell, and she really did not want to play around with it for obvious reasons. Still, something was niggling at her mind about this. Transfiguring an owl for this was unnecessary when the sender could simply rent one anonymously at the Owl Post Office in Hogsmeade, and why would the proudly Pureblood Davises use a paper envelope instead of parchment…?

"Keep your hand off my plate!" Bulstrode snapped, pulling it away from her.

Jen ignored the heavy-set girl and threw the strip of greasy bacon onto the envelope; as soon as it made contact, the bright red was replaced with ugly black and the meat shriveled up. Snape hissed as he watched the bacon rot before their eyes. "A Withering Curse. Disturbing and graphic, but undeniably effective." A snap of his wand vanished the bacon and the letter, and then he turned to her. "How did you figure that out?"

"The envelope. Parchment, being the skin of an animal, holds spells far better than paper ever could, so choosing a paper envelope for this makes no sense unless there was a reason parchment was unusable. From there, it was a short jump to thinking it would react to flesh, or at least skin." Rocking back on her heels, she shot Tracey a quick nod.  _You're welcome_.

Her friend gave a tremulous smile in return.  _Thanks_.

"You said the owl looked wrong," Snape mused, unaware of their silent conversation. "Perhaps it was a sculpture animated and charmed to look like an owl, or a poorly performed transfiguration." Noticing the stares of the students, he pulled himself straight. "Regardless, your quick thinking did save a fellow student. Take ten points—"

"Ahem."

Snape sent a mild glare at Flitwick, who had walked up near the end of this little drama. "Fine. Fifty points for Ravenclaw."

"Thank you, Professor." She met eyes with Tracey and jerked her head back toward the Ravenclaw table where Padma and Morag were already moving things around to make space for another occupant.

The unnerved Slytherin was quick to grab her bag and hustle to the table. Once the teachers were out of earshot, Tracey quietly asked, "Do you really think it was one of them?"

"Who else has anything to gain from your death?" she whispered back. "Although I guess it would be ironic for them to act through a middleman, all things considered." Tracey did not seem as amused by her reference to crimes past. "If you want, I could…?"

"No! Merlin, no." A full-body shudder ran through the Snake. "You've done quite enough of…  _that_ … on my behalf for a lifetime." She grimaced. "Though apparently I need to find somewhere else to stay for the summer. I don't think going home would be the safest course of action right now."

"You could always stay with me," Luna offered immediately.

When Tracey did not seem enamored with that suggestion, Padma shrugged apologetically. "I'd offer to let you stay with us, but since we went to see my father's side of the family last summer, we're going back to India to see my maternal relatives as soon as we step off the Express. I bet Susan or Justin would let you stay with them, though."

"What about your mum?" Morag asked, a frown settling on her face. "Why don't you go with her, or is she going to stay at your house?"

Tracey laughed harshly. "Mum, stay in that house? There's no way that would ever happen. I get my brains from her; she would have been out the door as soon as she heard my grandfather was dead and I was the new Head. She's told me before that the only reason she didn't take me away when I was a baby was a promise she made to my father before he died, but with me safe up here? She's probably staying with some old friends she made while she attended Hogwarts. I doubt she'd run to her parents, though I suppose that is a possibility, too." She hesitated a beat at their curious expressions before explaining, "They… kind of disowned her when she was fourteen and refused to give up her  _'devil's craft'_ , as they called it. After nearly twenty years without seeing their only child, though? Maybe they would miss her enough to let her stay for a while. A short while, mind you."

"It's a good thing you have a couple of months to get everything squared away, then," Padma said, and they all returned to their breakfasts. At Hogwarts, not even murder attempts were sufficient to get a day off.

* * *

**You're not going to get me to admit that Tracey and Jen's scene is better now than when it was based on the original version of last chapter. I refuse.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	40. Planning for the Future

**Anonymooses:**  Jen "puts up" with the Baron because she has no choice in the matter anymore. Voldemort can defy him to an extent because he is already protected by another Power (even if he doesn't know it), but Jen has already discovered what happens if one of Death's own avatars tries to get away. She'd rather not be ripped apart the way Elsie was.

 **Bapak:**  It was going to be an interrogation scene, with the MLEP questioning Tracey and making it clear that they thought she had hired a contract killer to get rid of Wallace Davis. Also shown was Snape being a decent head of house and interrupting the Patrolmen when they started making accusations without proof. It was 4,000 words, though, so unless something happens to give me lots of free time, you probably won't see it.

**I put up a new one-shot a week and a half ago. Let me know what you think of it.**

**Disclaimer:**  Did the Hogwarts heads of house schedule the fifth-years' career advice meetings during the school day when they, being professors themselves, also had classes to teach? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 40  
** **Planning for the Future**

The portrait that guarded Flitwick's office swung open on its own without a word from her, and Jen quirked an eyebrow at the frame. Yes, the list in the common room had told her to be here at one-thirty on the second Saturday of May, but she had still expected to need a password or at least announce herself. Then again, with how magical portraits could put on a remarkable semblance of sapience, they probably would have revolted if required to listen to a stream of students demanding entrance after the end of classes for a week. "Professor? I'm sorry I'm late. This morning's Wizengamot session ran much longer than planned."

"Oh, not a problem, Miss Black. These things happen." The diminutive Charms teacher peeked over the pile of pamphlets burying his desk and waved toward the only normal-sized chair in front of his desk. He hesitated for a moment before asking, "I know you may not be allowed to answer, but today was Hagrid's trial, yes?" She nodded slowly. "What was the final verdict?"

"It will be in the  _Prophet_  tomorrow, so I suppose it can't hurt to tell you now." Falling into the chair, she said, "It went about as well as could be expected. He pled guilty to all three charges – kidnapping, smuggling a sentient being into the country, and unlawful detainment subsequent to the kidnapping – which was more or less a given, considering he admitted to everything during his interrogation. Since the actual kidnapping took place outside of Britain, and I honestly think also because it was a giant he snatched rather than a human, that sentence was cut down to ten years, and he won't be extradited to the Continent to face trial there." She frowned lightly. "Though another reason for that is that Hagrid doesn't really know what country he was in when he committed the crime, which would complicate matters."

Flitwick expelled his held breath. "Good. That's good. Kidnapping was the charge he was facing that had the worst maximum punishment."

"Could have been fifty years, especially if he had fought it," she agreed. "The smuggling and detainment both got him twenty. Luckily for him, his general demeanor and… less than thorough education," she added delicately, "garnered enough sympathy from the Wizengamot that he'll serve his sentences concurrently in minimum security, and he has the possibility for parole once he's finished half that. That said, the prosecution made sure that everyone knew he kept that giant inside the Forbidden Forest itself and that it broke free and attacked the students, so once he's released he will be permanently prohibited from being employed by a school in any capacity."

"That is not an entirely unreasonable restriction from their perspective, I suppose," he said sadly, "though I know Minerva and Pomona will be torn up about it. They and Albus had the closest relationships with him."

She shrugged. Which teachers were good friends of whose really was of no concern to her.

The head of Ravenclaw sighed again. "Thank you for telling me. And now I suppose it's time we got to the actual point of this meeting. It's silly to ask this, I know, but do you know why I wanted to speak with you?"

"Judging from the instructions on the list you posted in the common room, I presume it's for career counseling?" she asked with a smile. "Before we start, however, a quick question." Flitwick nodded. "Why have the second- and seventh-years had these meetings, as well, and why not in all the houses? Neither Tracey nor Kenneth knew anything about it when I mentioned it to them."

"Ah, that." Flitwick's voice was sour as he leaned back in his chair and shook his head. "Yes, Gryffindor and Slytherin house only have a single advisory session, at the end of fifth year. If you'll excuse my bluntness, it is a fantastically stupid way to arrange things; something else we can lay at Dumbledore's feet, I'm afraid. He felt that a single meeting was enough to fulfill our responsibilities. Professor Sprout and I heartily disagreed, but while we could not convince him or Professors Snape or McGonagall of our views, we can still do right by our own students." He grinned faintly at her and asked, "Tell me, what aspect of your education here is most important to getting the career you want?"

She smiled back. "Oh, why do you have to set my inner Slytherin and Ravenclaw in conflict? It's either networking or OWL and NEWT scores."

"Close," he replied with a laugh. "But the truth is that what most influences what you will do for the rest of your life is which  _electives_  you start when you're a third-year."

Thinking about it, his declaration was fairly obvious. "Because what classes we take determine what skills we learn and what test scores we have."

"Correct. And that is what neither of my colleagues have realized; talking about which job a student wants does no good if they have potentially already spent three years in the wrong classes." He shook his head in disappointment. "And unfortunately, that is the exact position you are in now. The good thing is that you took Arithmancy and Runes; there are very few jobs where a grounding in what is essentially intermediate-level magical theory will hinder you.

"But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Even though you are long past second year, I want to ask you the same question I ask them: what do you see yourself doing in ten years?"

Jen leaned back and nibbled on her bottom lip. Two years ago, she would have said  _'taking over and managing Knockturn Alley's brothels'_ , and last year, she did not have a clue what she wanted to do with all the avenues that had suddenly opened up before her. "I have to admit, Professor, that is a difficult question."

"Which is the entire reason I pose it to my second-years a couple of weeks before they have to submit their elective choices," he agreed.

She nodded and went back to her considerations. What did she want to do? She could manage the family's estates and properties, which is what Sirius and Cissy spent a good chunk of time on, but that was not something that Hogwarts was decent preparation for. Enchanting, perhaps; it would be interesting to make the secondary foci she pretended to use all the time. A weak smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. With how young Sirius was, it would be a long time before she was Lady Black. How would he take her spending her idle time leading a revolution in some other country? That was what Elsie said white wizards feared was the endgame of the Dark Powers and their avatars, so maybe it would be fun to play up to those expectations for a while.

Rolling that laughable idea around her head knocked a memory loose, and she thought about a particular location she had explored that summer. The room-sized model of the solar system, the elaborate potions laboratory, the vast library detailing what could well be every question about magic ever to be asked. Sitting up straight again, she looked Flitwick in the eye. "How hard is it to become an Unspeakable?"

"An Unspeakable?" the quarter-goblin repeated to himself. "One of these days, I will cease to be surprised by you. What do you find so interesting about that career?"

His tone was open and interested rather than dismissive, so she answered honestly, "Well, it's what the Department of Mysteries does, or at least what I've been led to believe it does. Pushing the boundaries of magic, exploring new phenomena, explaining the unexplained. It's one of the few research jobs I know of, and as I have little interest in becoming a spellcrafter the way Luna does, this should satisfy my curiosity."

"And what are you curious about?" he prompted.

Her smile was sharp. " _Everything_."

Flitwick threw back his head and laughed. "I should have seen that one coming. If you are curious about everything, then yes, the Unspeakables are the way to go. I will warn you, however," he continued, his amusement draining away, "joining that department is not an easy task. Far from it. Because so many of their experiments sidestep or even completely flout established law, they are very stringent in whom they accept into their ranks. If you are truly dedicated to this path, expect to face a number of interviews and character evaluations in addition to questions about your exams.

"That said, I see no reason why they would not accept you. Your unusual method of casting magic and your exceptional sensitivity to the magic around you would, at the very least, pique their interest." A grim expression that might have been a weak attempt at a smile crossed his face. "And even if you do not get that job, there is always the possibility of being an independent researcher. Just be careful; I do not ever want to hear that another student died in an experiment the way Miss Lovegood's mother did.

"I assume you would like to know the requirements for attaining this position?" he asked unnecessarily. Diving into the mound on his desk, he pulled out a thin pamphlet that was remarkable only in how unremarkable it was and flipped through it. "Let's see. Ah, yes, I remember that now." He folded the pamphlet up again and dropped it back onto the stack it had come from. "It is a very good thing you chose the electives you did. Among their other requirements, all applicants to the Department of Mysteries must score an 'Outstanding' on both their Arithmancy and Ancient Runes NEWTs."

Her jaw dropped. The highest possible score on what were widely regarded to be the two hardest NEWT exams? They didn't want much, did they?

"Yes, you heard me correctly. You will also need a NEWT score of at least an 'Exceeds Expectations' in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Potions, and either Charms or Transfiguration, though both is better than just one and 'Outstanding's are preferable to 'Exceed's. High scores in other subjects are also recommended. Where you are—"

"Professor?" she interrupted quietly. He gave her a curious look and nodded. "What about… extracurricular exams?"

"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean."

"Well…" Deciding to just spit it out and get it over with, she said, "This summer, after we get out for the holidays, I'm going to the Continent to take an International Competency Exam. I was wondering how they looked upon those scores."

He shrugged. "I can't say for certain, but since they encourage other NEWT subjects, I would presume that they would be quite open to them. Which Competency are you scheduled to take? Alchemy? Dueling?"

"The Dark Arts."

"Oh." Flitwick leaned back and clicked his black nails together for a moment before giving her a weighted look. "That does not really shock me as much as you might expect it to. In addition to encouraging you to use dark magic in our spars, I  _might_  have witnessed your little bit of controlled chaos a couple of Sundays ago."

Jen's face blanched. He didn't mean he had seen her fill the dueling room with cursed fire, did he?! Had he told anyone else? How long had he been there? If there was one secret besides her status as a black witch she wanted,  _needed_ , to keep secret, it was her cursed fire. A stable variant of Fiendfyre? She would be under constant surveillance by everyone if news of that particular skill ever got out.

He shook his head and sighed, the sound breaking her out of her rising panic. "While incredibly dangerous, you appeared to have it under control, and as long as you do not use it to hurt anyone, what spells you are  _capable_  of casting are ultimately none of my business." The tension that had built up in her flowed out at that admission. "That said, I expect the Unspeakables would be more than happy to take a look at your Dark Arts scores. When I said they ignore Ministerial law, I was including in that the laws prohibiting the use of dark magic, and being formally tested in the subject would indicate a better grounding than most of their other applicants.

"Now, getting back to what I was saying before we went down that tangent," he said as he pulled out a file bearing the label  _'Black, Jennifer'_. "The purpose of today's meeting is to discuss how you are performing in your current subjects and which it would behoove you to continue next year should you qualify for the NEWT-level class. Are there any you are particularly interested in hearing about, or should we just start at the top and work our way down?"

"Whichever order you would prefer," she replied with a negligent shrug.

"Alphabetical it is, then. Professor Babbling has consistently given you high marks in Ancient Runes, and she has recently noted that you have been doing even better on your assignments now that she has started integrating practical work." He glanced up from her record and quirked one eyebrow. "In fact, she is openly suspicious that you have prior experience working with runes."

Jen rolled her eyes. Babbling could be suspicious or disapproving all she wanted; once she progressed past OWL level, what she had learned when was irrelevant. "My previous tutor felt that learning runes while ignoring actual runecraft was a waste of time."

"An understandable opinion; just don't let her hear you say that. Anyway, that is certainly your best class, much to my disappointment," the Charms professor added with a theatrical frown. "In Arithmancy you also have nearly all 'Outstanding's. Astronomy, on the other hand…"

He shook his head, and she just shrugged helplessly. "I'd like to see you look through a telescope and draft star charts when you're blind. If it weren't for several people helping me out last year, I don't know that I would have passed at all, and this year…" She sighed. "A better score on my Astronomy OWL just isn't worth enough to justify putting in the effort it would take to catch up on the four years I missed when I could be studying other subjects instead. Besides, with the reviews Sinistra has been putting on throughout the year, I should be able to do well enough to pass."

"I suppose you have a point," Flitwick finally grumbled in a reluctant tone.  _'Good enough to pass'_  was anathema to the Ravenclaw mindset, but at a certain point one just had to prioritize. "In my own subject, you are doing very well, approximately equal to Arithmancy. A couple of assignments dropped down to only 'Exceeds', but overall I would say you are more than capable of keeping up with the work I expect from my NEWT-level students." He gave her a wink. "And I know that the main stumbling block your colleagues will face next year, you have already mastered."

She simply smiled politely. One of the best aspects of wandless magic? No incantations or movements to memorize.

"Now, Defense Against the Dark Arts. I know, I know," he said, holding up his hand, "anyone could see that there are mitigating factors here. Professor Potter made a couple of comments on you not attending his after-class tutoring sessions, but we both know that you are more than ready for the practical portion of your exam." Jen nodded; small periods in her dueling lessons had been dedicated to learning the spells she would be expected to know, but that was by far the least important element of his tutoring. "In the theoretical elements, he cannot make an accurate estimation of your knowledge, but Professor Moody was complimentary of you, or at least as complimentary as he gets." They both chuckled at that. "I anticipate an 'Exceeds' on your OWL, though with a little revision there is no reason you could not have an 'Outstanding' in this class, as well. It really does not matter, though, since due to the constant change in professors for that subject, we have opened the NEWT course to anyone who achieves a passing score.

"Herbology. You are sitting somewhere between an 'Acceptable' and an 'Exceeds'." He wiggled his hand. "Depending on the questions you will be asked, you could potentially qualify for the NEWT section, but knowing you and from the comments Professor Sprout has made about you, I doubt you would want to continue that course no matter what score you wind up with."

"You assume correctly." Digging in the dirt just was not for her.

Flitwick nodded and said, "I can't blame you for that. Now, our History scores have always been rather pathetic, dependent more on what questions are asked than what the students study, and despite Professor Umbridge's best efforts, I do not think that will change in the near future. Since there isn't a NEWT History course, a good score here would be something to crow about but is ultimately irrelevant."

"A sad thing to say about what should be an important subject," she murmured.

"Indeed, but that is unfortunately how things are, not how we wish them to be. Your most difficult class to get into will be Potions," the quarter-goblin warned. "You are doing well in that subject, mostly 'Outstanding's with a few 'Exceeds' thrown in for flavor, but Professor Snape only accepts the best of the best into his upper levels. If you want to be an Unspeakable, that is where I would suggest you invest the majority of your revision time to ensure you get the best score you can."

She nodded in understanding, and he continued, "Finally, Transfiguration. Like the majority of us, Professor McGonagall requires at least an 'Exceeds' to move on to the advanced course, and that is where you are sitting. Since you stand a good chance of getting an 'Outstanding' in your Charms NEWT if you maintain your current work ethic over the next two years, this class isn't a priority like Potions, but taking and getting a good score on the Transfiguration NEWT could only help you in the future.

"And that concludes this year's portion of your career consultation," he said, flicking her records closed. "If you have any questions over the summer about which classes you think you should take or need to discuss how to proceed should you not make the necessary marks, feel free to send me an owl about your OWLs." She rolled her eyes at the pun while the tiny teacher tittered. "But seriously, I do make myself available to all my rising sixth-year students. Your third – technically second – meeting with me concerning careers will be near the end of your seventh year, where we will discuss how you can apply to the Department of Mysteries or wherever else should you change your mind between now and then. As I said earlier, however, taking the courses to become an Unspeakable will serve you well in nearly any career, particularly if you decide to stay in the academic fields. Are there any questions you would like to ask me?"

Jen stood with a polite smile. "None that I can think of at the moment. You have already been extraordinarily helpful."

"Simply doing my job," he replied with a smile of his own. The portrait behind her swung open, and he waved her out. "I look forward to seeing your results come August."

* * *

When the portrait swung shut, Filius leaned back in his chair. "An Unspeakable, hmm? I don't know whether that prospect is exciting or terrifying."

He had not told Miss Black, but he had a fair idea of what kind of work Unspeakables did; it came from staying in touch with a few contacts in that department. With the amount of raw power available to this young woman combined with both her family's predilection for dark magic and her own willingness to wield it, he would actually feel better if she were in an occupation that focused more on research and discovery. That was not to say that he distrusted her, not that at all, but he had found a few more similarities between the youngest Black and the woman she was publicly claiming as her mother than he was really comfortable with.

It would be better if she were someplace where her curiosity was engaged and her hands were too busy for someone to persuade them to work chaos.

 _I had better draft a letter of introduction to Will posthaste, then_.

Filius smiled as he thought about his old friend. Many people would wonder how he knew the variety of people he did, but what few understood was that dueling was not, and was never meant to be, a permanent occupation. Most duelists worked the circuit for five to ten years, maybe thirteen or fourteen if they were exceptionally skilled, before their reflexes dulled too much for them to compete against the new blood coming in. During that decade, however, they tended to get to know their mentors, their competitors, and the fresh faces they mentored themselves, and often they kept in touch with each other even after they moved on to a more sustainable profession.

Over his own career, he had gotten to know wizards and witches who were now Healers and Mediwizards, Aurors and Hit Wizards, professional bodyguards, Curse-Breakers, suspected criminal enterprise enforcers, combat tutors, mercenaries, monster hunters, and the list went on. The few times he had started listing just who all he knew, the people he was talking to had only half-joking asked if he was involved in organized crime.

The answer to that, of course, was no, but he  _did_  have the names of a couple of hitmen should he ever require their services.

 _Come to think of it, Will always preferred to learn things hands-on, didn't he?_ , he thought with a crafty grin. Quickly changing what he wanted to say, he applied quill to parchment.  _Perhaps I should tell him just enough that he can't help but speak to her in person_ …

* * *

"Miss Granger, Miss Black. If you would stay behind, please."

Hermione scowled as the rest of the class passed them on the way out the door, none of them trying to hide their inquisitive stares in the slightest. There were a number of reasons why Professor Vector might want her and Black to stick around after class, she knew that, but the ones she thought most likely were bound to be bad.

"Was there a problem, Professor?" Black asked in a sickly sweet voice.

"You tell me." The young instructor passed them each a thick sheaf of parchment; Hermione flipped though hers only to find the calculations and explanations she had turned in a week ago for their assignment on the Fidelius Charm. "Do you see the problem?"

"I'm afraid I don't," Hermione replied slowly.

Professor Vector scowled at her, then shifted the expression to Black. "You remember what I asked you to do, right? You were supposed to work  _together_  on an incomplete spell, not split up and work separately."

"Except that is exactly what we did," Black denied, "after a fashion, at least. Granger suggested the Fidelius out of personal interest, but when we did some research, we found that there were two conflicting opinions on how it was supposed to operate. Since both alternatives could make a solid case in their defense, it seemed wrong to focus on one or the other, so instead we worked on both of them."

"Then why are these calculations in your individual styles?" the adult witch demanded. "You each organize your functions in distinctive ways; Miss Granger uses the academia-standard method of precisely detailing each term where it occurs in the formula whereas you use the more 'compressed' style and define variables and subtypes outside the calculations proper. If you had actually worked together, they would either be a mishmash or you would have chosen one style to write both of them in."

She bit her tongue; this was what she was afraid would happen, that their professor would realize what they were doing. And all because Black refused to write her maths properly!

The Ravenclaw smiled dimly. "Just because we each worked on one formula does not mean that we didn't work  _together_." Professor Vector shot her an unimpressed look, and Hermione chanted in her mind,  _Shut up, shut up, shut up!_  "Our project was, from talking to some of the other pairs, already more difficult than the rest of the topics chosen, so we decided working on the formulae one at a time would slow us down even further. Instead, we each picked one and discussed them as we worked, seeking clarification and giving suggestions when asked. When we were finished, we checked each other's calculations to ensure we had not made any mistakes and then wrote our essays based on those notes."

Professor Vector looked away as she mulled that over. Hermione, on the other hand, glanced askew at Black; did the purple-eyed girl come up with that explanation on the spot, or had she been painstakingly crafting such an excuse over a period of days or weeks? Either way, she was shocked and disturbed that Danny's sister could mislead their professor that quickly. Hermione had been the one who had to come up with their excuses over the years because the boys were incapable of hiding their true motives, but her accomplishments in that sphere looked positively pedestrian in comparison to the clever lies and half-truths that fell so easily from Black's lips.

If she could deceive others with this little effort, what other lies had she spread in her two years at Hogwarts?

"Regardless, that is not what I asked for," the professor finally replied.

"I understand," Black said in a tone of surrender. "If you wish to mark us down, that is of course your prerogative. We just wanted our project to be the best it could possibly be, especially after you said you were expecting great things from us if we put our heads together."

That comment seemed to sting Professor Vector, and after a moment she warned them, "There is a great deal of group work in my NEWT classes, and everyone is put with everyone else multiple times over the two years. Because I have no way of knowing whether you're telling the truth or trying to cover your tracks, I am willing to let it slide on this particular assignment, but be aware that you will not be able to do that if you both continue taking this subject." The woman held out her hands for the essays, and when they were back in her possession, she waved at the door.

"That said," she added before they could leave, "your work on this  _was_  excellent. I truly do hope to see you both next year. Until then, study hard, and good luck on your OWLs."

The girls walked out the door; once they were far enough away that Professor Vector could not hear them easily, Black raised her hands above her head and stretched with a lazy smirk on her face. "That went better than I expected it to; I had three more good points to throw out if she didn't find that acceptable, but they weren't as believable as that one was. Good on you for playing along, Granger; that might have been what really sold it in the end."

"I could have  _'played along'_  better if you had told me what you were going to do," Hermione bit out. Being duped was not a good feeling, but she would have preferred to be in their professor's place to finding out that she had been unknowingly used as a prop in Black's performance.

Black waved a hand at her in dismissal. "If we had coordinated that, you would have tried to take point in our little talk and wound up bringing the whole thing down. I gave you the easy job as it was, so I don't want to hear any complaining."

She bristled. "Or maybe we could have done better if we had, I don't know,  _worked together_  on it?"

"Coming from the girl who picked the topic specifically so we wouldn't have to try that, your argument loses a whole lot of impact." Black turned to walk down a different hallway from the way she was going. "But thankfully that's all over now and we can quit pretending that we like each other. Ta-ta."

Watching the infuriating girl's back recede into the distance, Hermione scowled. Normally she would not wish ill on others, but if Black ended up failing the Arithmancy OWL, she could not honestly say that she wouldn't do a little dance of joy.

* * *

Griselda slowly lowered herself into the padding she had added to the chair in her office with only a tiny groan. Dumbledore may have been able to sit in it with only a little cushioning, but she was 170; if she needed more support, she damn well deserved it!

From the other side of the desk, Charles Tofty chuckled and conjured an overstuffed armchair for himself. "You sound like you aren't enjoying your new job. The years starting to get to you?"

"Darn whipper-snappers have no respect for their elders anymore," she shot back playfully.

The wizard – who was, after all, a meager 126 years old – laughed again and leaned back. "But seriously, Griselda. Being the headmistress of a school is a far cry from what we have been doing for the last couple of decades. How are you holding up?"

She sighed. "I had not realized just how much there would be to clean up. A Care of Magical Creatures professor who has been sent to prison, a Potions professor who is the most abrasive man I have ever had the displeasure to meet, an absolutely odious caretaker who does not seem to actually  _do_  anything, a Divination professor who is a not-so-closeted drunkard… Thankfully Umbridge included recommendations for at least stopgap measures in her dossiers, so I'm not starting completely from scratch."

"I don't like her," Charles declared grumpily.

She snickered. "You don't like anyone who is disingenuous. It makes you good with children and horrible with politicians." He raised an inquiring eyebrow, and she admitted, "I don't trust her, either, but my own observations have borne out her criticisms. I'll get rid of her when the school year ends, but until then she is less of a problem than others I have to deal with.

"And speaking of problems," she asked, "did you have any difficulties upon your arrival?"

"That depends on what you mean by  _'difficulties'_ ," he replied in a flat tone. "The Floo trip was unremarkable, and the weather was fine. The students, on the other hand…"

Griselda sighed and rested her head against the back of her chair. "That bad, was it?"

"I don't know how you did things back in Merlin's time"—she rolled her eyes at that stale joke—"but when  _I_  went to school here, it was always the Slytherins whom everyone else kept a wary eye on, and the Gryffindors ruled the roost. Now it's the Lions who slink around in disgrace and gave us the evil eye, and while I would never deny my old house getting their proper due and ascending to the top of the social ladder," the former Hufflepuff clarified, "it is still a strange sight to see. What in the world caused this?"

"It is astonishing how praised Dumbledore's name is in the house of the Lions," she answered, her entire frame slumping from the fatigue of the past couple of months. "I had to expel two students not too long ago because they were distracting everyone with their 'pranks', and when I finally forced them to explain why they were behaving this way, they told me it was what I 'deserved' for going along with the Ministry's 'usurpation' of Hogwarts. They were totally unrepentant of their actions, and it was obvious that if they were allowed to stay, they would only continue to escalate.

"Unfortunately, while they were the most aggressive in their protests, there are plenty of other Gryffindors who hold the same view." The tiny witch sighed again. "And though I have no proof of it, I suspect Minerva McGonagall, their head of house, is encouraging the house as a whole in their protests. She denies it and promised me that she would get a handle on their behavior, but that was a month ago, and I have seen little evidence that she has followed through on it. Either way, I have removed her as Deputy Headmistress; Pomona Sprout may not approve of someone who has not taught at this school being in this chair, but she at least keeps a steady hand on her house and has shown that she can be trusted to do her duties impartially."

Charles rubbed his bald pate. "A mess all around," he summarized, gaining a weary nod from her. "But look on the bright side: you only need to last through another three weeks before the school year ends, and then you have the whole summer to either straighten everything out or find a replacement." He waggled his bushy eyebrows. "But you'll have to act quickly; we won't keep your seat open forever. Maybe we'll find a nice young witch with bodacious—"

She lowered her wand and grinned as she watched her old friend try his best to remove the large cork she had conjured in his open mouth. "This has at least been a well-deserved break from your yammering, that's for sure."

* * *

**I find it way too funny that despite all ways Jen and Harry are different, it is still Potions that threatens to kill their chances at their dream jobs.**

**Flitwick is far and away my favorite nearly unknown character in the books. A quarter-goblin who went on to become a professional duelist? Forget** _**Fantastic Beasts** _ **; when are we getting a Filius Flitwick movie?!**

**Silently Watches out.**


	41. The OWLs

" **Vector isn't teaching; she's running bizarre social experiments!":**  Remember how, back in chapter 32, I said I based Vector on one of my old math teachers? Her putting Jen and Hermione together is something that teacher did with me and another student, and for similar reasons. We also dealt with the situation the same way Jen and Hermione did, though my teacher didn't figure it out.

**A quick note before we get started: Abyranss started a "characters read the book" story for** _**Princess of the Blacks** _ **, and before anyone got up in arms about it, I felt it prudent to let you know that I've already given him permission to do so. This is all kosher, don't worry.**

**Oh, and due to real life issues raising their ugly heads, whether I'll have time to write this weekend is kind of up in the air, so if you don't see chapter 42 in two weeks, that's why.**

**Disclaimer:**  Was Hermione given "the only Time-Turner ever to enter Hogwarts" (as per Pottermore) so she could take every class, even though both Barty Crouch and Percy Weasley proved that one could take and pass all 12 OWL exams without it and, in fact, Percy was actually taking 12 NEWTs that same year as well? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

**(And this should also show why I don't consider Pottermore to be canon. When the author makes up "new information" that contradicts the source material, we have a problem.)**

* * *

**Chapter 41  
** **The OWLs**

Monday morning dawned bright and cheerful, the exact wrong weather in the eyes of the fifth- and seventh-years as they milled aimlessly around the Entrance Hall and tried not to drown in their dread. The entire weekend had been spent rereading notes and quizzing one another, and the inhabitants of Ravenclaw Tower had enforced a strict ban on all forms of excessive noise, merry-making, pointless chattering, and walking through the common room except when the clocktower summoned them to meals or bed. For all Jen could see, the extra study time had done little but ratchet their stress levels even higher.

Not that she could blame any of her housemates for their behavior. She had practically eloped with her Potions textbook, and not a few times had she considered seeking out the examiners and attempting to seduce them for a guaranteed grade.

Breakfast had been a silent affair with everyone keeping their noses in their notes, and now that they could do nothing but wait for the examiners to finish setting the stage for their first exam, Theory of Charms, she was positively itching for something to distract herself with.

Letting her attention drift around the room, she cocked her head when she found Su Li flipping fitfully through her notes and double-checking them against a textbook. That by itself was not terribly surprising – Luna and Morag were doing the exact same thing – and while it was by no means as strange as Padma and her sister sitting in lotus position and meditating together in the corner, what surprised Jen was that she could see that the book Li was perusing was for  _Divination_.

A class she knew the Chinese witch wasn't taking.

Unable to smother her curiosity, Jen quietly walked over to the witch and whispered, "I think someone may have played a trick on you." Her eyes drifted to where Granger was pacing fitfully; Granger was number two in their class, and while sabotaging the likely valedictorian to take her place was an extremely underhanded move, if it worked it would be worth any criticism she received should her actions come to light.

"It's not a trick," Li snapped back. "I need to study this for my exam this evening."

Jen quirked an eyebrow. "Really? I've seen you in all our Arithmancy classes for the last two years, and Divination is at the same time. Unless you have some way of being in two places at once?"

"Of course I haven't! I'm fully capable of doing independent study, and Professor Trelawney was gracious enough to supervise my practical exercises on Saturday mornings." The haughty, but admittedly brilliant, witch sniffed disparagingly. "I took both Divination and Muggle Studies that way, in fact. Granger talks big, but she tried to do the same and ended up dropping both those classes in third year. If I pass all these exams, I can quit worrying about her trying to knock me out as first in the year, and I also won't have to listen to my parents constantly telling me to study harder."

"Whatever will you spend that newfound free time doing, I wonder?" she asked jokingly.

Li stared at her as though she were a particularly slow snail. "Studying to make sure I break the standing record on my NEWTs, of course."

"Of course," Jen muttered as she walked away. "And people think  _I_  study too much. At least I'm only taking one extra subject."

Before she could find someone else to bother, the clock chimed nine-thirty, the doors to the Great Hall opened, and one of the examiners who had arrived the day prior called the students into the room. The four house tables were gone, and a multitude of desks large enough for only one person had taken their places, each labeled with a name. The students took their assigned seats and picked up the charmed quills that had been provided for them while the seventh-years filled the seats behind them, and then the massive doors slammed shut with a sound of finality.

"This is the theoretical portion of the Charms exam," the bald wizard said, adjusting the pince-nez perched upon his nose and sweeping his eyes over them. "You have two hours in which to complete this exam. Your time begins… now." And with that, he turned over the enormous hourglass behind him.

Jen took a breath and flipped the exam around. Two hours for one hundred and twenty questions. Not easy, nowhere near it, but doable.  _Question 1_ , she read,  _a) Give the incantation and b) describe the wand motion required to make objects fly_. She sighed silently and started digging through her memory for the facts she had read the previous year and had gone over again more recently. She just hoped she did well enough on this written exam for her practical to cover any holes.

* * *

The house tables had reappeared for the lunch hour, and then the students were called together once again for their practical exams. After the horrendous exam she had just completed on rules of magic that by and large did not apply to her and that she would never need to know for the future, she was more than happy to showcase her real skills.

Professor Flitwick was stationed at the door of the Great Hall, presumably because it was his subject being tested upon, and he gave her a quick grin before ushering her inside. She walked into the now nearly empty room and made her way to the one of the tables in the back of the room, Hannah Abbott and Millicent Bulstrode already being examined at the front, and gave her name to the witch standing there.

"Black?" Professor Morrison repeated, giving Jen a quick double-take as she wrote the name on the grade sheet in front of her. Jen nodded, unsure whether the knowing tone the other witch had used was a good thing or not. "I tested your mother when she was a student here," Morrison continued, "and what a mess that was. Just so you are aware, 'accidentally' misaiming a Banishing Charm so you stab a quill through a fellow student's wand hand has since been made an automatic failure, so I would not recommend trying to get even with any rivals here."

She sighed, the sound almost but not quite a laugh. "That really should surprise me more than it does."

"So long as we understand each other. Now, take this teacup and make it dance."

Jen hesitated a beat. Making something 'dance' was supposed to use a different spell from general animation, but while she could remember the incantation –  _'Pupae Saltant'_  – the proper wand motion escaped her. Unable to bring it to mind, she mentally grit her teeth, flicked the index finger of her left hand, and muttered the incantation.

The white porcelain cup bounced around the table in a respectable foxtrot, and the old witch glanced up at her in surprise. "Point casting already, Miss Black?"

She shrugged sheepishly. "My tutor before Hogwarts trained me out of using wand motions early on, and I kept the habit when I came here. I'm at the point that it's actually easier to point cast than not."

"Fair enough," Morrison said with a neutral nod. "Now, I'm not a fan of how white this cup is. Make it a pretty blue…"

On and on the exam went; making the cup larger and smaller, sticking it upside down to the bottom of the table, even charming it to automatically heat any liquids poured into it without burning Morrison's finger when she placed it on the inside. By the time she turned it invisible and made it sing –  _'I'm a Little Teapot'_ , appropriately, which got the barest hint of a smile from the examiner – she was almost enjoying it. It was at that point that the medallion the woman wore around her neck began to vibrate, and Morrison waved for her to stop. "Very good. This is the end of your Charms exam."

"Any chance you can tell me how I did?" Jen asked with an engaging smile pasted onto her face. The likelihood was low, she knew, but on the off chance she could get more information…

"I'm afraid not. We have to administer the entire exam in order to ensure there are no irregularities, and only then will we determine your score. Expect to receive notice of them in early August." Knowing a dismissal when she heard one, even if she was more than a little irritated at the condescension within it, Jen gave the woman a short nod and walked out in search of Susan. Ribbing her friend would give her mood a much-needed boost, and anyone who mixed up a cooling charm with what was apparently a pewter-to-beeswax transfiguration desperately needed to be mocked.

The rest of the week continued in much the same vein: theory in the mornings and practical in the afternoon, which Jen consistently felt she did better on than the written exams. Transfiguration was covered on Tuesday, Herbology on Wednesday, and Defense Against the Dark Arts on Thursday, but as the days went on, one very irritating trend was becoming clearer and clearer.

Jen stormed into Ravenclaw Tower following her practical DADA exam and hurled her bag to the floor. The various protective charms prevented anything inside from breaking, but that did little to alleviate her frustration. Right now, she  _really_  wanted to hear a satisfying crash.

With a wince, Padma asked, "Went that badly, huh?"

"The test was fine," she bit out. "The stories that apparently have to go along with it, though… That's a different story entirely."

The three other Ravenclaw girls glanced at each other in bemusement before Luna ventured, "Stories…?"

"If I hear one more anecdote about how my mother was a homicidal maniac when she was our age, I will not be held responsible for my actions."

"I don't know for sure, but I bet that's the exact attitude that caused all those problems," Morag whispered to the others.

It was not quiet enough for Jen to miss, however, and she shot the redheaded Scot a baleful glare. "Every practical I take, I get to hear some tale about what my mother did during her exam to other students. Every. Single. Time. And what makes it so bad is that all of them end with  _'And thanks to that, doing X will now fail you automatically'_. I've sat four exams, and I've heard nine of those rules already." She hissed through her teeth. "Everything I've read says that during her trial, people were surprised that she was up there, but now I'm wondering why she wasn't the first person the DMLE pulled in for questioning when the War officially broke out."

"Was she really that bad?" Luna asked.

"Either she made it a goal to cause as much chaos during her exams as possible, or she kept getting tested alongside someone she really,  _really_  hated. I don't know which, and I frankly do not care."

The three girls said nothing, not that there was anything worth saying, and Jen flopped into the couch. "But tomorrow is Runes," she sighed, "so hopefully I'll have the weekend to prepare myself for Potions and the inevitable tale of how she 'accidentally' splashed a ladleful of acid onto someone's hand or something."

The weekend went as calmly as two days filled with franticly memorizing potion ingredients and number of stirs could go; Jen even skipped the Wizengamot meeting that Saturday, and upon seeing both Susan and Tracey when she took an early lunch, she knew she was not the only one. Monday actually passed without any mentions of Bellatrix's misbehavior, and she took that as a positive omen for the week to come. Tuesday she had off, as that was the day for the Care of Magical Creatures exam, and so she wished Padma, Tracey, and Susan good luck and instead spent the day cloistered in her room studying for the Astronomy exam she had to take the day after until Luna came in for bed, at which time she had to disappoint her libido and moved down to the common room to continue cramming until almost two in the morning.

The theoretical portion of Astronomy was somewhat easier thanks to her marathon revision session, though she highly doubted she would be able to recall any of what she read if asked about it the next day. In comparison, Arithmancy was almost easy; the calculations she was required to perform started rather simple, and though the three formulae waiting to be analyzed at the end were admittedly complicated, they did not come close to the complexity of either possible formula for the Fidelius Charm. One of them, the Color-Change Charm, she even recognized and could write out with a minimum of difficulty. The practical Astronomy exam, on the other hand, was… not abysmal, exactly, but she knew she would need to count on her theory score to make up for her pathetic star chart. She had barely finished labelling half the stars and planets on her diagram when time ran out.

 _It's a pointless subject, anyway_ , she had to remind herself multiple times the following day.

History on Thursday was her final exam, as it was for all those who had not chosen to take the Muggle Studies course, and thankfully it had been scheduled for the afternoon to allow them to sleep off the late night. Even better, that night Marchbanks made a welcome announcement.

"I know this year has been one of great upheavals for everyone," the elderly witch said, "and for the fifth- and seventh-years, it has been so at the least opportune time. Therefore, since all exams will be finished by tomorrow afternoon, I am making this Saturday an additional Hogsmeade weekend—" Her next words were drowned out by the cheers coming from all four tables, and she waved her hands in a fruitless call for silence. It eventually took a cannon blast erupting from her wand to regain a modicum of control over the situation. "As I was saying. Hogsmeade will be open, and since these changes affected everyone at this school regardless of their year, for this day only those students in the first and second years will also be allowed to enjoy the town, as well." A smaller cheer arose from tiny throats, and the youngest years chattered amongst themselves while Marchbanks returned to her seat.

"I'm not babysitting," Morag said without preamble, spooning some more parsnips onto her plate. "So if the firsties get lost in Hogsmeade and blame starts getting thrown around, just keep that in mind."

Jen shook her head with a laugh. "As someone who spent a lot of time with the second-years, I can confidently say that they'll probably stick together in large groups while wandering around. I don't know the first-years as well, but my money is on them doing the same thing.

"Besides, it's just Hogsmeade," she added with a shrug. "What's the worst that could happen?"

* * *

Sirius gasped in surprise as the medallion hanging around his neck grew warm. Pulling it out from beneath his robes, his eyes landed on the phoenix on one side for a brief moment before he flipped it over to the blank side. As he watched, writing filled in the featureless gold face:  _'Diagon. 5 min. Ongoing. Assemble HQ'_.

"Sirius?" Narcissa asked, looking up from her ledgers. "Is something the matter?"

He jumped to his feet. "Death Eaters are attacking Diagon Alley. We're meeting at the Longbottoms' to head out in force." He rubbed his forehead in frustration; Dora had been scheduled to work dispatch at the Auror Office for the weekend, and for all he knew Andi did not want her only child involved in the war against the Death Eaters, she was the best fighter the Blacks could field. He was good, better now that training the Hit Wizard recruits and sparring with the other Order members had knocked off the rust that had accumulated during his stint in Azkaban, but neither Andi nor Narcissa had any skill in combat. Bellatrix had been the only sister with an interest in dueling. "Floo call the DMLE and make sure they know about this. I'll head out with the rest of the Order and hold the Death Eaters off until they can reinforce us."

Floo powder was in his hands before Narcissa could say anything, and then he was in and out of the emerald flames. The Order members were already waiting, and another person passed through the Floo and ran into him before he could get out of the way of the fireplace. "What's the situation?" he demanded, striding toward the low table in the middle of the room.

"What was in the message is the sum total of our current knowledge," Albus answered. Turning the map of Diagon Alley in front of him around, the old man tapped his wand to two spots in the middle of the marketplace coloring them blue. "Kingsley has already said that he will bring down the Alley's anti-portkey wards from the controls inside the DMLE, so we have the element of surprise. By now the Death Eaters will have surely spread out throughout the Alley; we go in two groups to these points and fire Stunners as soon as we arrive." Looking up at them, Sirius could see that Albus's eyes were burning with fury. "If we can capture them quickly, or at least a large portion of them, the rest will try to scatter. Since the anti-Apparation wards will still be intact, however, they will be trapped unless they brought their own portkeys with them, and Voldemort would not be eager to waste so much of his strength for a simple raid like this to make enough for all of them. I doubt anyone beyond his inner circle would carry one, and possibly not even them."

"Everyone form up!" Moody barked and conjured two wooden balls, one on each side of the room. "We're at seven minutes and counting, people!"

The plan was a good one, at least as far as Sirius could see, so with a shrug he hustled over to one of the balls. It was also the same one that James had decided to use. "Brings back memories, doesn't it?" his once-best friend said with an uneasy grin, the ghosts of unmade declarations and old mistakes hanging heavily between them. James picked up the ball and held it out for everyone to lay a finger upon. "Just like old times."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I would have been happier not reliving those particular old times," Sirius retorted in a grim voice.

James nodded. "So would I."

Moody stomped over to their group and grabbed hold of the portkey before waving his wand over it. The wooden sphere glowed blue, and he shouted, "Diagon!"

An enormous fishhook lodged itself in Sirius's belly, and he was jerked off his feet and spun through the multicolored air like a child's top. He squeezed his eyes shut and proceeded to take deep breaths; he  _hated_  portkeys. After several horrible seconds, his feet slammed into the ground, and he spun around and dropped to one knee while his wand came level with his eyes.

There were the Death Eaters, and Sirius felt his brain actually start to hurt trying to figure out what they were doing. They were dealing damage to the Alley, fire and explosive spells being the most common tools, but there was something off about it. Most of the damage was cosmetic, and while he could hear whimpering and crying drifting from the stores nearby, none of the Death Eaters seemed to be paying the slightest bit of attention to it. It was as if they were waiting for something.

" _Stupefy_!" James roared from beside him, making him jump. The shout was echoed by the rest of his portkey group.

The massed casting alerted the Death Eaters to their presence, and the dozen or so black-robed figures whirled around and threw up transparent shields to defend themselves. The Stunning Spells pinging off the shields, the Death Eaters retaliated, and jets of bloody red and sickly green flashed toward them.

Sirius dived out of the way of a Killing Curse that had been aimed at his head and rolled behind a large overturned crate. Like James had said, this definitely brought back memories of fighting in the last war, but he still could not shake the feeling that something was wrong. His suspicions were only strengthened when, after that single volley, a voice he easily recognized as his hated cousin's called out, "Portkeys!" At Bellatrix's command, all the Death Eaters grabbed for something in their robe pockets and disappeared.

Silence blanketed the Alley for a few moments. "I thought you said they wouldn't have those!" he then heard Hestia Jones demand.

He poked his head out from behind the barricade in time to see Albus shake his head at the witch. "Yes, I did, but it is obvious why they had them. This attack was merely a feint to distract us while they move on to their real target. During our last fight with Voldemort, that was his favorite tactic, but normally he organizes it with much more finesse." Albus grinned craftily. "He is out of practice, and that will be his undoing. Alastor!"

"Already on it!" the heavily scarred former Auror called back. Moody was waving his wand around the area where one of the Death Eaters had stood, and after several confusing moments, he shouted in triumph. "Found you, you little bugger! Everyone grab hold!"

Sirius blinked as Moody held up one of their portkeys. "What are you doing?"

"We got tired of the high-ranking Death Eaters escaping by using portkeys, so after the War was over, some of us put our heads together and came up with a way to keep it from happening in the future." The nasty smile on Moody's face was made even more vile by the scars criss-crossing his visage. "We still can't  _track_  portkeys, but now we can at least follow them."

"That's absolutely brilliant," Emmeline Vance whispered.

"Thank Bartemius Crouch. He and Amelia Bones were the ones who figured out that the same spell we use to copy magical signatures for the Magical Forensics guys to play around with could be used to duplicate a portkey." Moody shook his head in regret. "Damn waste, him dying just so Voldemort could hijack the Triwizard Tournament. But we'll make those bastards pay for it, mark my words."

Everyone crowded around Moody's ball, and with the number of Order members gathered, Sirius was not the only one who had to clutch the back of someone's robes rather than touch the portkey himself. With a tap of the Auror's wand, they were off again. Sirius had to grit his teeth and tighten his grip on James as they spun dizzyingly around and around and around; portkeys were supposed to latch onto the people using them, but that apparently only affected the people actually touching the thing. His feet were swinging wildly in nothingness, the wind was scouring his face, his fingers were starting to slip—

And then he slammed face-first into the sweet, precious, amazingly firm ground.

A moment to regain his senses and he stumbled to his feet, eyes flicking back and forth in search of their enemies. "Where are they?" he muttered.

An explosion and a chorus of screams answered his question. They ran toward the noise, and he groaned aloud as he saw where they were headed. On the upside, the thousands of Muggles pouring out of the cricket stadium were unlikely to care that they were obviously not adhering to nonmagical fashion in favor of running away from the strange terrorists and their incomprehensible weapons, but the Obliviators were going to have an incredibly hard time finding  _everyone_ who had seen what they should never know about. The size of the crowd also made it nearly impossible for the Order to reach the Death Eaters.

Without warning, a serious of loud booms rang through the air, and the entire stadium collapsed. Screams erupted from the people outside the disaster area, but they were matched and exceeded by the terrified and agonizing cries of those who had not been lucky enough to escape the death trap. Sirius stared at the ruin of twisted steel and concrete in horror; how people were now trapped there? Hundreds? Thousands? Or maybe there were even more people inside than had made it out?

The cracks of Apparation caused them all to whirl around, and his eyes widened. The Death Eaters had doubled in number between Diagon Alley and here, now outnumbering the twenty Order members, but that was not what had caught his attention.  _That_ honor was claimed by the chimeras and snakes and dragons and rocs of living flame that were barreling toward them. Spinning on his heel by panicked reflex as much as any thought of tactics, he Apparated away from the killing field and a hundred paces to one side, a number of his allies hurriedly joining him.

That position gave them an excellent vantage point to watch the eight castings of Fiendfyre crash into the sea of survivors and burn them all alive.

The dark fire, having just fed so well, began to spread uncontrollably, and several of the Death Eaters laughed. Bellatrix's cackle carried over all of them, and the sound drew his eyes to her even though she was just one silver-masked villain among many. She turned to say something to another Death Eater, and from the way they laughed again, he was sure it was something no decent person would find anything close to funny. Bellatrix raised one hand to something dangling around her neck, and after another moment, she called out loud enough for everyone to hear, "Everyone! Back to base!" That seemed to be the command yet another set of portkeys were waiting for, for all two dozen of the Death Eaters vanished simultaneously without a sound.

"Quick! Figure out where they went so we can go after them!" James shouted at Moody.

"Are you crazy?!" Hestia demanded, pointing at the Fiendfyre wrecking havoc in front of them. "We have to put that out before it kills anyone else!" She whirled on the rest of the Order. "Who knows a spell to contain Fiendfyre?!"

No one said a word, and after a moment, Albus threw his left arm up and sent off the phoenix Patronus that had been perched upon it. "I have alerted the Ministry of the situation, and they should be on their way to take care of this. As for us, James is correct. The only way to prevent atrocities like this from occurring again is for those responsible to be captured. Our duty is to chase them down, and now that they have fled to their base of operations, this is the best, maybe the  _only_ chance we will have to stop them."

He gave Moody a nod, and the ex-Auror hobbled toward the chaos to get to work.

* * *

His eye on a small vial placed on a stand, Voldemort paced restlessly across the room and quaffed yet another Pepper-Up Potion. Making thirty-seven portkeys in the span of a few hours was not an easy task, not even for someone of his strength, and once again he cursed the nature of the spell that limited their lifespan to only a few hours. It meant a tiring afternoon, and while the potions had restored his physical energy quite quickly, his magical reserves were still lagging behind.

Still, what was done was done, and to take his mind off his self-inflicted hyperactivity, he surveyed the troops before him. Around the room stood a few of his proper Death Eaters, eight in all, but the majority of this force was made up of creatures. Admittedly, they were either werewolves who, despite being uneducated in magic, still had their curse to fall back on or Muggles who were currently under the Imperius Curse and armed with mundane firearms, but it was still a twisted sort of irony considering the philosophy he had chosen to espouse in order to attract his followers.

Without warning, the tiny tube inside the vial shattered, and black ink spread throughout the water between the two layers of glass.  _At last_. He had started to worry that something had happened, but Bellatrix had finally gotten around to sending her signal.

"Gentlemen," he hissed in undisguised pleasure, picking up his end of the portkey and checking that the rest of his fighters were likewise holding on to the long strand of rope, "stage two of Operation Rampart begins…  _now_."

* * *

"There it is!" Moody yelled, his wand already pointing at the wooden ball once again. "We have to hurry! If I were one of those bastards, I would've changed portkeys so no one could follow me. We need to get there before the signature over there gets too muddled!"

Sirius was close enough to lay a finger on the sphere this time, and once everyone was either touching it or hanging on to someone who was, away they went again. Using this many portkeys one after another was beginning to play havoc with his head, so he tried counting his breaths to stave off the dizziness.  _One, two, three, fo_ —

Something slammed heavily into them as they spun through the air, or maybe they were the ones to hit it, but either way they were thrown uncontrollably in another direction only to bounce away again and again like billiard balls. A woman screamed, and Sirius watched in horror as Hestia lost her grip and fell; a moment later she vanished from their sight and hearing. Before he could say or even think anything, the ground came up to meet them like a punch from a troll.

He lay on the grass for a moment, just staring up at the cloudy sky, until a shiver ran along his spine. Some kind of ward had just gone up, never a good sign, but when he clambered to his feet, those thoughts took a back seat to the sight before them. They were standing in a small courtyard, flat and barren, and on the roofs of the empty buildings around them stood wizards and witches in black robes. All the Death Eaters had already leveled their wands at the Order.

Bellatrix stepped forward, her mask hanging from her left hand and a wide, crazy grin on her lips. "Kill 'em all!"

Sirius lunged away from his team, his skin flowing into fur in midair, and the instant Padfoot's paws touched the ground he was running away from the downpour of Killing Curses. Shrieks echoed behind him, but he did not, could not, look back. All his attention was focused on dodging the bolts of green death that flashed around him. He jumped and weaved, skittering randomly every few seconds to stay out of the way of any curses aimed for his tail. The ground hissed and smoked next to him as a spell hit where he would have been had he not dodged, and then he leapt at one of the buildings, breaking through the door and transforming back into a man in mid-roll.

The danger to him personally now greatly reduced, Sirius peered around the corner of the doorway to see how the rest of the Order escaped the barrage of dark magic. They hadn't, it seemed; most of them were still in the middle of the courtyard, and were it not for the presence of Albus and Moody, they would all be dead. The two magical giants stood back to back, Moody's wand flailing violently as he uprooted grass and earth and stone into curving walls while their leader far more sedately transfigured those meager defenses into thick bronze shields that could not so easily be destroyed. Even with them working desperately, it was obvious that the sheer number of the Death Eaters attacking them was slowly but surely beating them down, and from the occasional glances Sirius caught of his allies as those walls were broken down, everyone knew it.

A crack, and tiny Dedalus Diggle vanished from inside the circle only to reappear upside down five feet up in the air and missing his arms and legs. A Killing Curse snuffed out his life before he hit the ground.

Sirius jerked his head to the side as a loud hissing came from inside the room, and his wand came up to point at the spot of brilliant white flame that was quickly carving a three-foot-wide ring through the bottom of the far wall. The plaster circle fell toward him, and the colorless haze of a Full Body-Bind zipped through the hole into the seemingly empty room on the other side. "Sirius," James whispered loudly, "it's me! Don't shoot!"

"Sorry!" he called back. James crawled through the hole and scrambled toward him. His face was pale, far more than Sirius had ever seen on the man before, and the canine Animagus had to comment on it. "You look like you just had ten years scared off your life."

"A Killing Curse went maybe two inches in front of my face," James admitted with a quick chuckle that bordered on the hysterical. Sliding over to lean against the wall on the other side of the empty doorframe, he took a brief look at Sirius. "If I hadn't tripped over my own feet at the last second, I would have run right into it. And to be honest, you don't look too much better, yourself."

"I don't think anyone looks good right now." With another peek at the beleaguered Order, Sirius shook his head. "There has to be some way for us to get out of this mess." Unfortunately, what that might be he had no idea. As Dedalus had proven, Apparation was right out, and he suspected that if portkeys were viable, the rest of the Light's soldiers would already be away from this place. And that was the grand total of the ways they could escape without relying on objects they would never find here.

James forced a grin, the expression tired. "I have an idea about that, actually. Remember when we bribed the house-elves so we could sneak fireworks into the soup bowls at the Slytherin table? They went off in the middle of dinner, and stew splattered everywhere?" Sirius gave a slow nod. He remembered, all right – that had actually been his idea – but for the life of him he couldn't see where the other wizard was going for this. "Soon as everything started exploding, all the Snakes ran off and never looked back." He lifted his wand and waggled his eyebrows. "Think we can do it again?"

Glancing out at the carnage before them, Sirius muttered, "If we stay behind cover like this, we won't be able to hit them all. Maybe a quarter?"

"We don't need to blast all of them, just force them to slither away back into their holes. It should be enough. And if not…" James shrugged helplessly. "What kind of Gryffindors would we be if we didn't charge headlong onto the battle field?"

" _Living_  ones, if this doesn't work out." But sadly, it was the only real plan they had, so Sirius swallowed down his reluctance and held up three fingers, then two, then one. Pointing their wands at the buildings they could see from their respective positions, they bellowed as one, " _Confringo_!"

He didn't know about James's spell, but his own Blasting Curse soared away like a yellow arrow and crashed into the edge of the rooftop. The top of the wall and a good-sized chunk of the roof blew apart, rubble flying everywhere, and the trio of Death Eaters positioned close enough to the blast fell screaming to the ground.

Forcing his mind off the fact that he might have just killed three people –  _None of them were all that close to the explosion. It couldn't have been too much worse than getting hit by a Bludger, and the fall was only ten feet. Surely they're fine; hurt, but still alive._  – he aimed at the next building and cast again. He chanced a glance at James and saw that the other man was staring at the ground where, presumably, another group of Death Eaters lay unmoving. "James, snap out of it! We don't have long before they catch on to what we're doing."

"They're just… laying there," the other wizard whispered, face turning green.

Sirius understood where James was coming from; even though both of them had fought in the first war, they had made it through without having to kill or seriously injure anyone. The idea that they might have done so now was distressing, even sickening. But now was not the time to wallow in their worry. "James!"

A third voice screamed the incantation, and Sirius hastily threw a shield over their heads an instant before the roof came down on top of them. The force on his shield ran through his wand and into his body, dropping him to his knees, but the rubble settled before his paltry defense wore out. "James, we have to go!" he shouted, grabbing James's arm with his left hand and almost pulling him out of the collapsed building. That thankfully dragged the other wizard out of his fugue, and after a moment he climbed to his feet.

They had not downed many of the Death Eaters, but apparently it was enough. The walls defending the rest of the Order lifted into the air and flew apart to crash into the remaining terrorists. "Counterattack!" Dumbledore yelled, and just like that the men and women who had previously been huddled up in fear filled the air with Stunning Spells.

"We need to regroup with the others," James said, and Sirius barely had time to nod before he started running after his friend. Spellfire swept back and forth between the two groups, no one paying much attention to the two men, but he still flinched away every time a curse flew anywhere near him.

So, when a voice behind him shouted " _Reducto_!", it was no surprise that he jerked to one side. In doing so, he was in the perfect place to see the beam of flat red light sail past him, right through where his chest was a moment before, and slam into James instead. Sirius could only watch in horror as his friend fell, screaming in agony and desperately clutching the ragged stump and growing pool of blood that had once been his left knee.

He spun around and cast a  _Protego_  just in time to block another Reductor. "Bellatrix!"

"Coward!" she laughed, dancing past a brace of curses with grace she only showed while surrounded by blood and death. He flung a Cutting Charm at her and grit his teeth when she dodged it. "Proud little Lion, afraid of a few spells? Sirius Black's a  _cow~ward_!  _Crucio_!"

Sirius summoned a bit of rubble, hoping it would get in the way of the Unforgiveable in time. It didn't.

Hours passed in the span of seconds before Bellatrix let up, and he quivered helplessly on the ground as all his muscles did their best to crawl away and abandon him to his fate. Hazily, almost in slow motion, he watched her raise her cruel wand again, but before she could unleash yet another curse upon him, she twisted and fired off a spell that cracked a suddenly appearing bronze lion in half. Another attacked in its place, then two more joined the fray. The world returned to its proper speed when she threw a stone cube at one of the golems, a snarled spell destroying them both, and with a shout of "Fall back!", all the Death Eaters Disapparated in retreat.

Slowly so as to not aggravate his raw nerves, Sirius pushed himself up on his elbows and looked around. They had won, but the victory had not come without cost. Sturgis Podmore's body lay not ten feet away, his belly bloated to the point that it had burst and spread his intestines all around him, and near the far wall he could just barely make out the twisted and broken form of Hestia Jones. From the shape of the wall above her, falling from the portkey had slammed her body into it at high speeds, though the deformed head of the cadaver meant she likely had not suffered. A long, loud wailing from behind him made him turn at a glacial pace, and what he saw broke his heart. He was not a huge fan of Molly's, having butted heads with her more than a few times over Narcissa's involvement with the Order, but he could not help but feel sorry for her as she cradled the head of her eldest son in her lap and wept over him, his eyes staring lifelessly at the sky.

Beyond her lay five more of their fallen, new recruits who had only joined after Voldemort had revealed himself and whose names he could not immediately recall. Between the dead and the injured scattered here and there like himself and James, who thankfully was now receiving first aid from Emmeline Vance, what they thought was a sufficient force to counter the Death Eaters had been cut down to a third of what they had been just ten minutes before.

"This was all one big trap," he said, half to himself. "They knew how we would react, they were prepared for it, and they played us."

"Impossible." Moody stomped over and stood next to him, looking down to meet his eyes. The electric blue eye even stopped its constant revolutions to glare at him for a moment before returning to its previous surveillance. "They would have to know already that we could follow their portkeys, but this is the first time we've ever done that in a real-life confrontation."

Sirius scowled and shook his head. His body still ached, but he had recovered enough to climb uncertainly to his feet. The world spun rebelliously underneath him, and Moody held out a hand for him to support himself with until everything went back to normal. "But they redirected your portkey here and had those palings ready to go when we arrived. And why else would they all carry that many portkeys? This was too good to be spur of the moment. It  _had_  to be planned."

"But how would they find out about it?" Moody challenged. "Only five of us knew about that tactic. Barty's dead, Amelia is all but incorruptible, Proudfoot lost his wife and two of his three kids to them, Jackson in Magical Forensics retired shortly after that and moved to Greece, and I only told Albus about it a couple of months ago. There's no one who could have leaked it to them, and that's assuming they even knew to ask." He shook his head and grumbled, "But there's something wrong about all this, I'll give you that. Albus, you didn't reveal our plan to Snape, did you?"

The former headmaster sighed from behind Sirius and walked into view. "When will you all let go of these baseless suspicions? Severus is completely trustworthy." Moody's derisive snort told them what he thought about that statement, and Albus frowned at him. "But regardless, no, I did not tell him. You asked that I keep it secret until we needed to use it, and I did so. However, I think I know where Voldemort learned of this knowledge."

"Where?" the retired Auror demanded.

"We do not know how long Bartemius languished in his clutches. I assumed he interrogated Bartemius and quickly disposed of him once he had the information he wanted"—Albus grimaced at his own callous turn of phrase, no matter how accurate it was—"but now I fear our friend may have been held for far longer than we first believed. We never recovered his body, after all; maybe he is even now still alive. If so, there is no way to know what secrets Voldemort may have been able to extract from him."

"Damnation," Moody whispered. "Even after he was transferred to International Cooperation, a bunch of us stayed in touch and kept him in the loop. If Voldemort really is torturing every bit of information out of him, enough to find out about this, he'd be up to date on practically everything related to the DMLE. It explains how he got in and out of Azkaban without anyone knowing for half a day, and I doubt Scrimgeour would have changed Barty or Amelia's policies drastically since he made Director. The Death Eaters will be able to predict what they'll do in almost any situation."

"But now we know about it," Albus said. "That, at least, is a silver lining. Their plan to wipe us out has failed, and we have discovered crucial information. Despite our losses, today was a success—"

He stopped as a glowing blur raced towards them, and anyone who could stand crept closer. The blur slowed and resolved into a Patronus – a house cat, specifically – and once it stood in front of them, it opened its mouth and spoke in McGonagall's voice.

_"Albus, we need help! Hogwarts is under attack!"_

* * *

**I had forgotten just how fast J.K. skimmed through the OWL weeks until I wrote this chapter, but** _**damn** _ **.**

**And a random thought: due to growing up in an orphanage in London, the leader of a group of anti-Muggle terrorists almost certainly has a better understanding of Muggle technology and culture than Arthur Weasley, the "good guy" who is supposed to be the government's expert on their nonmagical cousins. I don't know if that's funny or just sad.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	42. The Battle for Hogsmeade

" **Voldemort just pissed all over the Statute of Secrecy":**  Yes, he did, but things aren't  _quite_  as dire for the Wizarding World as many of you seem to think. Keep in mind that, canonically, the number of Muggles who know about magic are the parents and siblings of Muggleborns and the current and former Prime Ministers; what's more, it's said explicitly in book 6 and is common sense that explaining the situation as magical terrorists attacking people because they don't have magic would get you strange looks. What's the more 'rational' explanation, magic or normal, human terrorists bombing a stadium to cause fear and panic? As for nearby cameras, yes, they captured the event, but keep in mind that 1996 was the year of  _Independence Day_  and  _Star Trek: First Contact_  and  _Dragonheart_ , all movies with decent, even good, CGI. The vast majority of people would dismiss the recordings as a joke in extremely poor taste, and those who took it seriously would be considered conspiracy theorists and dismissed. Though that does give me an idea for a different story entirely, now…

 **anonomus:**  I saw your earlier review, yes, but reading it? A little more difficult. I don't like to call people out in public like this, but since you don't have an account I can send a PM to: if you want to ask me several unrelated questions, please do so in a list, not a giant wall of text. What you wrote is too mashed together for me to figure out what it is you wanted to say. Proper spelling and punctuation would also greatly improve the clarity of your questions.

**Holy crap, guys, I passed 3,000 reviews last week. And a special thanks goes to… anon? Well. That's anticlimactic.**

**Disclaimer:**  Rather than waiting a year for Draco to fix the Vanishing Cabinet, did Voldemort just send some Death Eaters to sneak into Hogwarts on a Hogsmeade weekend, when the school gates were kept open the entire day? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 42  
** **The Battle for Hogsmeade**

Jen raised her bottle of butterbeer and clinked it against her friends'. "To our exams being over.  _Finally_."

"Hear, hear," Susan answered, the sentiment echoed among the rest. Kenneth was hanging out elsewhere with friends from his own year, so it was just the five of them sitting at the table inside the Three Broomsticks and enjoying their newfound free time. The school year was not yet officially over because the professors still needed to score the exams the rest of the school had to take and pass those marks back, but with the OWLs finished, the fifth-years had nothing to do until Wednesday when they would return home.

 _And for the Friday right after that, I might tell everyone that I'm spending a couple of days with some friends in Wales and head to Cardiff_ , she thought to herself, fingers sliding down her left arm to scratch idly at the scar decorating her wrist. The summer solstice was fast approaching, and thanks to the wound she had inflicted on herself while bearing the Baron's mantle during her latest ritual, she could now actually feel the light magic of the world reaching its crescendo, like spiders crawling beneath her skin. Her family had been extremely worried when she passed the day in her fevered stupor, and since she knew that was something she would have to suffer through for the rest of her life, any opportunity she could get to minimize their knowledge of her 'condition' and avoid them asking awkward questions was worth the effort.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that something had disturbed the students sitting by the window, and when they just stared out the window, she craned her neck to get a better look. Outside the castle's wards like this, her sonar stretched a mere ten feet, but even if she had her full thirty-meter range, it would do little good stuck inside the building as she was. Other diners had begun noticing the distracted individuals, and a wave of silence swept through the room as more and more people watched them or stared out another nearby window. Only after the whole tavern was quiet for several seconds did someone near the back whisper, "What's going on?"

That was when people outside started screaming.

"Death Eaters!" someone shouted, and instantly motion and panic flooded the establishment. Jen shook her head and took another swig of her drink before setting the bottle on the table. And she had been enjoying the day, too. Pushing herself out of her seat, she slid into the growing crowd and jabbed her elbows into a few people's ribs until she could peer out the window. Sure enough, Death Eaters were flooding the streets, many more than she could remember feeling at Voldemort's resurrection part, and… What the hell?

She blinked and looked again. No, she wasn't going crazy; an elderly witch lay motionless on the ground, a red circle enlarging on the chest of her sky-blue robes, and a Death Eater was walking away from her, weapon already pointed at his next victim. What made it so strange was that it was not a wand but a large pistol that he clutched in his hand. The gun barked out a report, and more screams joined the rising cacophony. Another dozen Death Eaters came into view then, all armed similarly to the first.

"They're Muggles," she muttered. That was the only answer that made any sense, and it would explain how the Dark Lord's ranks could have swelled so much without anyone knowing. Being under the Imperius Curse would also render those Muggles immune to the repelling charms set up around the town and castle since they would not be acting based upon their own minds but simply following orders. For Voldemort's purposes, they were perfect foot soldiers: if they were captured, they would have no information that could be pulled out of them, and should they die… well, he espoused their destruction, anyway.

Of course, there had to be more than just Muggles here. Jen's eyes flickered around what little bit of the village she could see, looking out for any people in black robes and silver masks who were not engaged in fighting. Muggles were not exactly hard to direct through mind control, but for filling his fighting force with enough of them to be effective, actual wizards would have to be here as well. And the more people under the spell at once, the more concentration the wizard ordering them around would have to devote to it. If she were in Voldemort's place, she would have devoted the Death Eaters who were capable of managing the enthralled Muggles entirely to that, and those who could not would be placed on bodyguard duty. Just like she had turned Loki into a familiar to guard her while she was performing her rituals, other foot soldiers would have to make sure no one interfered with the wizards doing the delicate work.

As for the point of the attack, Voldemort's desire was obvious: he wanted to take Hogwarts. It was the only reason he would attack a town that was too small to have any other value. If he gained control of the castle, he could hunker down behind its wards and withstand just about any counterattack the Ministry cared to throw at him. He would also have the students in his possession to use as leverage over their parents, and considering that Hogwarts had by far the highest population of Wizengamot heirs of all the schools in Britain, that influence would be substantial.

Padma grabbed her hand and pulled her backwards out of the press of bodies. "What are we going to do?" the Hindi witch demanded.

"The safest course of action would be to stay here," she answered slowly. "Bar the door, reinforce the walls so no one blows a hole through them, Floo out as fast as possible. Turn this place into a fortress in the meantime."

"That's it?! Just huddle up and hope no one gets inside?!"

"Remember Grindelwald's invasion of Warsaw or the goblin's last war?" Jen asked with the faintest laugh. "When it comes to a siege, the defenders always have the advantage."

Padma shook her head and said in a nearly hysterical tone, "That's what you get for not paying attention to the lectures just because you father was the one giving them. The Poles  _lost_  that battle."

"True, but only after fifteen days of holding off the German forces. Part of the reason I'm suggesting we getting away as quickly as possible."

The girl nodded weakly, but then shouts started coming from the fireplace. "We can't get out!" some witch screamed. "We're stuck here!"

"Bollocks." Jen gnawed at her lip for a moment before throwing locking and strengthening charms at the door. It would not do much against magic, but hopefully those spells would keep one of the enslaved Muggles from barging inside and shooting up the place. And it was not as though walking out the front door would have been a valid avenue of escape, anyway. "I'm open to suggestions."

"I'm a fan of the 'stay here' plan, myself," Tracey said.

Looking among the three girls, Luna tentatively added, "Jen? What about the second-years?"

Shite. Her kids. A fortifying breath, and she asked, "Where were they headed?"

"I don't know."

Well, that made things more complicated. She could stick around here, keep any of the Muggles from entering the Three Broomsticks, and prepare for when an actual Death Eater eventually tried to force his way in. Or, she could head out into the fray, put herself in danger, and shepherd the second-years back to the castle. She might have the best chance of surviving the onslaught out of all the students in the village, but sticking her neck out without a plan while her opponent had clearly organized this all in advance was the exact kind of fight she never wanted to be part of.

Another scream made her decision for her. That maternal instinct she had never been able to shake was going to be the death of her, she just knew it.

"Adams!"

At her yell, the Slytherin prefect jogged over, his face drawn but an eyebrow quirked in hopeful curiosity. "You rang?"

"Have you figured out a better plan for getting through this besides fortifying everything and waiting it out?"

"That's what I've been considering, too. With the Floo out of commission and Death Eaters running around, we're stuck either sitting around or fighting out there despite the odds. That's just suicide," he admitted. With a tired snicker, he joked, "And after all the trouble your dad went to teaching us how to duel. He'll be so disappointed in us."

"Just ignore him. It's what I do," she retorted. "I've put a few protections on the door already, but the walls are still weak, and the windows are just glass. There's a back door, too, isn't there?" He nodded. "Bar that, as well. I'm headed to the roof; maybe I can pick a few people off. Not to mention, there are a couple of baby Ravens and Snakes who need to be led back home."

"Make sure you hide the ones you attack," he warned. "Taking them out will only help if their friends don't immediately wake them back up."

"I think most of these 'Death Eaters' are actually Imperiused Muggles, so that's less of a danger than it might be otherwise." Adams didn't look convinced, and she lowered her voice. "Besides, I'm not some Light idiot. I'm a Black. We believe in more  _final_  solutions."

The prefect's eyes met hers, and after a moment he nodded. He understood; right now, their enemies' lives were at best a tertiary concern. If they needed to die for her to keep herself or her kids alive, then die they would. "We'll be here waiting if it gets bad and you need to get back inside."

"Thanks. Padma, Morag, Luna, help Adams. Tracey, with me."

Luna lunged forward and grabbed hold of her hand. "I'm staying with you."

"No," she instantly replied. "It's way too dangerous."

"And you think it will actually be safe in here?" Blonde hair flew as she shook her head. "Safer, maybe, but that's it, and if I'm with you and Tracey, I can keep an eye on the stuff you can't see."

"Tracey isn't—" Taking a deep breath, she grit her teeth. "We'll talk. Come on." Her best friend and her girlfriend dogged her heels as she ran up the stairs to the private rooms and threw open the first door she came to. A couple glanced up, the snogging session that had left them ignorant of the building crisis now thoroughly interrupted. "Out!"

"Hey, you can't just—"

A blast of lightning cut the boy off with a yelp, and he and his paramour hastily ran out of the room before she could hurl another one after them. Slamming the door shut, she stormed over to the window and slid it open. "Neither of you is coming with me."

"Then why bring me up here?"

"No, you can't go out there alone!"

"You two are the people here I trust most," she explained, both girls paying more attention, "but I doubt either one of you is prepared for what's happening. I don't need you to be backup out there. I need someone to keep a watch on this window. Once I get the kids to safety, I'm coming right back here, but we can't leave it open. Most of the people down there may be Muggles, but there have to be at least a few real Death Eaters lurking around, and the last thing we need is them sneaking inside."

"Except you can just open and close the window with a spell," Tracey pointed out.

"Not after I charm it so it can't be opened from the outside. Once the rest of the protections are up, there's a chance trying to bring down just that one spell will break the rest. A small chance, admittedly, but a chance nonetheless." She shook her head. "I'm not going to risk that."

"And  _I'm_  not going to sit around the hearth and hope that my girlfriend will come back," Luna shouted back, her eyes burning with an inner fire. "I may not be a great fighter, but I'm not some doll you can put up on a shelf, either. If you think I'll just let you run off and put your life in danger without me saying a word, you've got another thing coming!"

Blinking at the little blonde, Jen turned questioning eyes to Tracey. The brunette shrugged. "I'm not a Gryffindor; I don't go charging in like an idiot. But being a Slytherin doesn't mean being a coward. It just means fighting smart. You run off and get the kiddies. Luna and I will be perfectly safe hanging out on the roof, and that will give us a chance to lend a hand without sticking our necks out too far."

With a nod, Luna added, "That's the best you're going to get. If you don't like this plan, we'll call Padma, Morag, Susan, and Justin up here, too. Maybe the six of us can straighten you out."

"I don't suppose I can just give you a mind-numbing kiss and convince you to stay in here that way, can I?" she weakly asked. Luna shook her head, and she sighed. All it would take was a wave of her hand to erase both their memories of this confrontation, but she couldn't bring herself to do it, just as she hadn't modified Cissy's mind on the solstice after she accused the woman of being an intruder merely impersonating her aunt. She did not care about most people, but these two? "Damn it. Fine, okay."

Jen crawled out the window, hanging onto the frame with her fingertips and pressing her knees uncomfortably into her chest. Shoving herself off the windowsill, she threw her left arm up and called up her gravity well. It drifted slowly upward at her command, and soon enough she was standing on the pub's pitched roof. It would be so easy, she thought, just to leave the pair inside. No worrying about them putting themselves in danger, no chance they might attract too much attention onto themselves…

"Jen, you had better not be planning on leaving us down here," Tracey warned. "If you do, we'll just have to climb up on our own, and we'll probably fall and break something and be completely defenseless when someone finally stumbles onto us."

She sighed. It was probably a bluff – probably – but from Tracey's tone, she did not know how much of that declaration was bluster and how much was serious, nor could she rule out that Tracey might follow through on it to spite her. Such were the problems that came with having a Slytherin friend. The edge of the roof just to the side of where the window was stretched and melted, wooden shingles joining and growing into a ladder, and they quickly climbed up as though they thought she would change her mind if they took too long.

Which she would have.

The triangular decoration above the pub's entrance that bore its sign gave the three girls a little cover as they examined the scene below them. Hogsmeade was not a large village – maybe two hundred people in total worked there, though only half of them actually called the town home – but already she could see over a dozen people laying to the ground on High Street, the village's main road. A couple of the fallen wore black robes, but the majority were civilians. More screams came from the west end of the village, and Jen grit her teeth as her mind raced. "I'm going to reinforce this," she said, resting her hand on the wooden adornment, "and fill in the gaps so some sharpshooter can't shoot through it and hit you, then I'll add some walls. That'll be protection on three sides. After that, it will be up to you to keep yourselves safe. Unless you've changed your minds?"

Luna and Tracey simultaneously shook their heads.

"Can't blame me for trying," she muttered. Closing her eyes, she let her sonar guide her as she raised two walls from the shingles and expanded the sign, charmed the walls so it would take a blow from a giant before they broke, though it did little for the opening at the back. "As long as you stay near the corners, you shouldn't be in any danger of being shot at from the open side. If things get bad and you think you need to retreat back inside, stay low and move quickly." Taking another breath, she warned them, "I'll shut the window before I head out, but the ladder is long enough that you can climb to the bottom and open it again from there."

With a sigh, she added, "Watch each other's backs, okay? If I have to go to either of your funerals before we graduate, I'm going to be very put out, and I have ways to make you regret it."

Luna smiled weakly while Tracey just rolled her eyes. "The whole  _'I can make you suffer in ways you could only imagine'_  threat stops working once we realize that you would never be able to bring yourself to hurt us, you know."

"It was worth a shot." Giving them both a nod, she scurried over the peaked roof to the ladder to magic the window closed. She jumped, her body shrinking and her skin melting into feathers, and seconds later a night-black raven flapped into the sky.

With her sonar out of commission thanks to her small size, Jen rose in the air while her eyes darted around, hunting for anyone she recognized. What she found instead were more bodies, a trio of Muggles firing upon Honeydukes', a band of Death Eaters drinking from vials…

Her eyes nearly popped out of her head. The six men had fallen onto their hands, ripping off their robes to reveal how all the muscles in their bodies were writhing, and then they twisted and screamed, human voices morphing into bestial howls. Fur sprouted over their skin, bones snapped and stretched, faces deformed, and then half a dozen stocky wolves barreled into a store with snarls of feral rage.

Banking to one side, she shot a look at the sky. The sun was still up, hanging low over the sky, and even were it night, she was not so bad at Astronomy that she did not know her moon phases. Today was a new moon; how could those werewolves have transformed?!

She needed to find the kids and get them out of here  _now_. Dropping lower, she finally spotted a couple of familiar faces: Cedric and McGonagall fighting side by side, a small huddle of children hiding behind them while a transfigured wall was all that separated them from a slowly growing crowd of armed Muggles firing upon them. She wheeled in the air and dived. Booted feet hit the cobblestones, and she brought her hands together in an ear-ringing clap. The sound distracting them, the Muggles turned around in time to catch the expanding wave of fire with their faces. They screamed in agony, natural instincts breaking through the Imperius, and from the unnatural rate at which they burned away, she realized she might have leaked a little dark magic into her spell accidentally. She strode past them before waving her hand behind her to conjure a wall of her own to block off the alleyway. "Everyone okay?"

"Miss Black?" The Transfiguration professor poked her head out from behind the barricade. Seeing only Jen there, she flicked her eyes around the alley and slowly eased her way into view. "Where are the Death Eaters?"

"They weren't real Death Eaters; they were Muggles." Jen jerked her head at the piles of charcoal that were all her spell had left behind. "But either way, they aren't a problem anymore. Is anyone injured?"

McGonagall did not seem to hear her, too busy staring at the remains. "Not a problem? Miss Black, please tell me you didn't"—glancing behind her, the professor slid around the wall and crept closer so she could hiss quietly—"you didn't kill these people."

 _Okay, I didn't kill those people_. Swallowing that flippant retort, she instead said, "They've already killed a couple dozen people. At this point, self-defense easily justifies the use of lethal force. And a good thing for you that I did, otherwise it might be  _you_  lying on the ground dead rather than them."

"But if they were Muggles, they were likely under the Imperius." Jen nodded. "Then they weren't responsible for their actions."

"Doesn't make them any less of a threat. Cedric!" she called, moving on to someone who hopefully would be a better conversation partner and might even address her own concerns. "Everyone all right back there?"

The Head Boy walked out from behind the wall, a gaggle of firsties following behind. "Yeah, we're fine."

"Good." Turning back to McGonagall, she said, "Do you have any way of getting in touch with the DMLE or the Order besides the Floo?"

"Order?" Cedric asked.

"I sent a Patronus to Albus just before we got trapped back here. They should be arriving here any minute."

Jen rolled her eyes. From the way Cissy had described the group, she doubted the vigilante organization would be much help, but hopefully someone would have brains enough to call in the Aurors. "Well, send him an update. They brought werewolves with them."

Giving her a strange look, the older witch asked, "How would you even know? A werewolf is indistinguishable from a normal wizard until they… transform…" She trailed off at Jen's nod. "They changed? Now? That's impossible."

"I thought so, too. Apparently not." Turning around, she spotted one of the newest Ravens; what was his name, again? She didn't know the firsties as well as the second-years, unfortunately. "Kevin," she ventured, and thankfully he lifted his head to meet her gaze. "Do you know where any of your year-mates are?"

He shook his head. "I think they wanted to see the Shrieking Shack?"

That was to the east, away from where all the screams had first come from, but with the distance Voldemort's thralls had covered already, that was not as comforting a thought as one might think. "Why would they even go to the Shack?" she muttered. "The villagers might have rebuilt it, even artificially aged it to look the way it used to, but all the mystique is gone."

Kevin shrugged, and when she turned to McGonagall, she asked, "Benjamin Adams, along with some others, is fortifying the Three Broomsticks. There are a few dozen other students inside, and enough upper-years that it should be safe to bunker down in. Can you lead these kids there or to the castle?"

The older witch swallowed harshly but gave her a sharp nod, apparently setting aside the disgust she felt at Jen's ruthless actions for the moment in light of the immediate situation. "You and Mr. Diggory are headed to the Shrieking Shack, then?"

"That was my plan. You in, Cedric?"

"Why not?" he said with a strained laugh. "All the plans I had for the day seem to have fallen through."

She grinned. "That's the spirit." A wave of her hand called a ladder up from the ground adjacent to one building while a second crumbled the wall she had created, and the smile widened when no one said a word about it. Clearly her pretense of using secondary foci all the time had paid off.

Climbing the ladder with Cedric right behind her onto the relatively flat roof, she kept her head down and hurried to the end of the building. "Hey, a question before we get too busy fighting for our lives," he said as he picked his way much more carefully than she had. "Why are we all the way up here instead of staying on the ground?"

"You mean the ground like there?" she whispered. His eyes tracked her finger to the pair of armed Muggles walking along the street almost right under them, and he grimaced in understanding. He also jumped in surprise and nearly fell off when a lightning bolt erupted from her fingers and sent both men spasming to the ground. "They don't look up much, and being up high gives us a better vantage point."

"So how do you plan to get across, then?"

That was a good question. If she were alone, she would either shift herself back into a bird or just fly as a human, but for all that her wandless magic was ignored in favor of more reasonable explanations, there were still things that could not be so easily waved off. Not to mention, those two strategies would leave her unable to use magic effectively or make her too noticeable to the Death Eaters, respectively. She chewed her lip in thought. They did not need to actually  _fly_ , just get across the gaps…

A crafty smirk emerged. "Like this." Casting a spell on both of them, she jumped; Cedric opened his mouth to yell before realizing that her single bound, aided by her impromptu half-featherweight charm, had thrown her all the way to the next building. "Well, what are you waiting for? We need to move."

Over the next four or five buildings, they adjusted to the side effects of the spell. It was perfect for jumping, but for running they had to lengthen their strides into something more along the lines of a lope if they wanted to avoid bouncing too high or tripping over their own feet. Stopping was also an issue, and after the first couple of jumps Jen simply bounced over the street and threw lightning at the costumed Muggles once she was already across while Cedric tried – and succeeded more often than not – at flinging Stunners mid-leap.

Howls sounded from nearby, and she skidded to a halt at the middle of a peaked roof, one hand flying out to catch Cedric before his own sudden stop sent him sailing off. "They're close."

"Worse," he said, pointing ahead of them, "they sounded like they were coming from the Shrieking Shack."

They shared a brief glance before they were running again, not even bothering to zap the enemies they passed. Six buildings lay ahead of them… five… four… Now screams were mixing in with the wolf song; terror rather than pain, praise the Baron, but she was well aware that the situation could change all too quickly. At the last roof she finally got a glimpse of how things stood: eight wolves ramming themselves over and over again against the front door of the Shrieking Shack, the wood buckling with each hit. Over the din she could just barely pick out individual voices, those belonging to her charges. First- and second-year Ravenclaws, along with a couple of twelve-year-old Slytherins.

She snarled deep in her throat and flung herself off the rooftop, a tug of her hand ripping a large portion of the shingled surface away from the rest of the house. The wood was already reshaping itself when she hit the ground, splitting and thinning and growing lumps of hard nickel. Silver might burn werewolves, but it was not the only thing that could hurt them. Three more bounds halved the distance between her and the Shack. "Hey, you mangy mutts!"

The pack whipped their heads around and sprinted toward their new victim, too immersed in their cursed rage to notice anything but new prey, and then it was two late for them to avoid the hailstorm of transfigured arrows that fell from the sky and nailed them to the earth midway between her and the Shack.

She walked up to them and took a moment to admire the four-foot-long bolts that had ripped through them. One twitched, trying to fight its way free and bite her before a fireball slammed into its fur and set it alight. "Touch my kids and die," she snarled amidst its cries, and a sharp gesture set the hungry flames to consuming the other monsters.

Hesitantly the door creaked open, just a crack, and a shaky voice asked, "Is it over?"

"You can come on out, Maisie."

The tiny redhead flung the door open and walked out, and Jen quickly smothered a grin. Maisie Jackson was by far the smallest in her year, weighing in at maybe five stone when soaking wet, but here she was marching out as nonchalantly as she could while still shaking like a leaf. "We had it under control," the girl said, pointedly not looking at the still-burning bodies.

"Of course. My apologies. If I had known that, I would have left you to it."

Maisie shuddered but quickly rallied. "Well, what's done is done. I suppose you can be forgiven this time."

"Jen, as amusing as it is to see an eleven-year-old turn your own attitude back on you, is this really the time?" Cedric cut in. No one was in sight, but from the howls and gunshots, that would not take long to change.

She nodded, but what to do? They were far enough away from the Three Broomsticks now that it made more sense to take the kids directly to the safety of the castle, but if she went with them, it would eat up time when some of her kids might still be in danger. On the other hand, she could not let these kids wander around on their own. They needed someone to guard them…

Hmm, that was a thought.

"Okay, everybody. Let's get you back to the castle. Out of the house." Twenty-five baby Ravens and Snakes slipped out the door, and once she was sure no one was still inside, she reached out with both hands and pulled. Her magic ripped the front of the Shack off, the rest of the building collapsing behind it, but her mind was on the wood she had grabbed. The timbers melted and pooled together, and from those clumps emerged legs and tails and snouts. Six bear statues came alive at her command, the animation charm already implanted and directing them, and they took up positions around the children while the same number of wooden tigers formed a looser ring. "Head straight for the castle. Don't wander off; don't try to run away and hide while everyone else is moving. They will protect you until you get to safety. Go!"

The kids hurried away, reassured as only children could be that someone older had taken charge and promised they would be okay, and once they were out of earshot Cedric asked, "Are you sure those will be enough?"

"I'm sure. The statues will accompany them, and the bears are programmed to move between the kids and anyone chasing after them."

"And the tigers?"

She gave him a grim smile. "They'll attack."

"Should have guessed," he muttered. Loping away from the remains of the Shrieking Shack, they jumped onto another roof and ran back the way they came. "But I have to wonder, what do you have against the Shrieking Shack? This is the second time you've torn it down this year."

Jen laughed, the adrenaline lending it a hard edge. "I forgot to knock it down last year. Had to make up for it."

He nodded and bounded across the street, but then he jerked back and held up his hand for her to stop. A second later and she was next to him. What has distracted him was obvious: a group of Muggles had been found by some werewolves, and though they were technically working together, it seemed that lupine side of the beasts' minds had forgotten that little detail. The road below was splattered with blood, body parts strewn carelessly about, and the wolves themselves were chomping contentedly on the soft tissues.

Cedric moved his hand to cover his mouth, but she just tilted her head in curiosity. Werewolves, to the best of her knowledge, tended to hunt humans for sport rather than food, though that was not an absolute rule, nor did it not make the aftermath any less gruesome. Part of the reason there were so few wolves running around Britain – the Order, according to Sirius, estimated just under three hundred, though the official Ministry tally was forty-nine – was that surviving the initial attack was rare, mostly because while a single bite or scratch was sufficient to pass on the curse, werewolves generally mauled their victims to the point that death was actually preferable to survival.

It was why Fenrir Greyback was considered so dangerous. He had somehow attained enough control over his feral side to consistently leave his victims alive, and he was crafty enough to arrange his hunts so that he could get in, bite, and get out without anyone knowing he was there until he struck. Between that and his habit of kidnapping children who would be less likely to resist his indoctrinations as they grew up, he ran the largest pack in Britain and possibly Europe as a whole.

"Must be lunchtime," she joked. The wolves swung their heads toward her at the sound, and immediately they abandoned their half-finished meal and leapt. However strong they were, their altered bodies were not meant to climb up the side of a building, so Jen took a single step back and shook her head at their futile efforts.

"Was that really necessary?" Cedric demanded in a breathless voice.

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. "Scared of werewolves? Not that I'll hold it against you if you are," she added. "I'm not fond of them, either." A swish of her hand, and the three cursed wizards were on the ground, their bodies completely covered by steaming pitch. Their magic might make them resistant to many direct combat spells, but the twenty liters of boiling tar that soaked each wolf's fur would keep them stuck in place just fine if it didn't roast their insides.

Cedric just shook his head and muttered, "Let's keep moving."

Their path eventually led them close to the Three Broomsticks, and when it came into view Jen staggered to a stop and stared. This was most definitely not what she had in mind when she agreed to let her friends keep watch. The walls she transfigured had been copied until they framed the entire roof, and while she gaped, half a dozen jets of scarlet light streaked down to drop the team of Muggles that had gathered around the rallying point. There were even a few wolves lying there, ropes wrapped tightly around their legs and clamping their muzzles shut since stunning charms would have no effect. A pair of kids ran toward the pub, and the people on the roof concentrated their fire on anyone even looking at the two until they reached the door; it opened just far enough for hands to reach out and pull them inside, and then it slammed closed again.

Not what she had mind at all, but she could not deny that it was effective.

"Diggory!"

She sighed as she recognized that voice. Cedric, though, did not share her displeasure and turned around. "You all right, Potter?"

"More or less." Cedric dropped to the ground, and she debated internally for a moment before she landed next to him. Potter and his three friends shot disbelieving looks at her before the Lion returned his attention to the Head Boy. "We ran into some fighting on the way here. You've seen the werewolves?" They nodded, and Potter grimaced. "Then I don't need to tell you to be careful."

"None of you were bitten, were you?" asked Cedric warily.

Granger shook her head. "We weren't, no, but we were in Zonko's when they broke in." She swallowed roughly and continued, "One of my dormmates, Parvati, was bitten, and Lavender…"

The girl trailed off, but it was obvious what had happened. Brushing the Gryffindor girl's no doubt ghastly death aside, Jen asked, "Did any of you see any first- or second-year Ravenclaws about?"

"I don't know," Weasley weakly answered. "We saw a bunch of kids running this way, but I don't know their houses or anything. It looks like someone turned the Three Broomsticks into—"

He cut himself off with a yelp, his eyes going wide, and Jen spun around to find another Imperiused Muggle aiming a gun at them. Her magic, already primed after so many repetitions, formed itself into a lightning bolt almost of its own accord and crashed into the masked man. The pistol in his hand went off, the bullet cracking one of the stones of the cobbled street, and then he fell spasming to the ground.

She turned back to the Lions. "Any other important bits of information you have to tell us?"

"One more thing," Potter slowly said, recovering before his friends did. "I heard it from some of the people while they were running past us. It isn't just Muggles and werewolves. You-Know-Who is here, too."

Cedric grimaced, but she nodded. "Not terribly surprising. Striking at a target this valuable? I'd be more shocked if he  _weren't_  here to capture Hogwarts personally."

"Wait," Weasley replied with a blink, "you think he's here for the castle? Why?"

"Because Hogwarts is the best-defended location in Britain," breathed Granger. Sudden comprehension lit her eyes. "It has more and better wards than than Ministry. If he wanted a permanent base that he could hold against any and all attacks, Hogwarts would be perfect. And now that Professor Dumbledore is gone…"

"There's nothing stopping him. Nothing except us."

None of Potter's friends stared at him in confusion or surprise at that statement, which was all the proof Jen really needed to know that all four of them were insane. A fifteen-year-old wizard with no special powers trying to take on a Dark Lord who had the advantage of fifty years of experience, libraries worth of knowledge on the Dark Arts, and the backing of what was essentially a god? And he truly expected to win?

At least she had her own Power supporting her and did not plan to take him on in a frontal assault.

Potter looked at her for a moment before continuing, "Look, I know we've never gotten along, and we probably never will. But you're an excellent fighter, and you're my sister—"

" _Half_. Sister."

"…Fine, half-sister." Granger puffed up like she wanted to harangue them both for playing into the lie, but she held her tongue. Perhaps she realized that it would only disrupt whatever groundwork Potter was trying to build. "But do you think that separation will make him decide to leave you alone?"

She shrugged and moved her hands up and down like a scale. "I don't really know. On the one hand, I am the daughter of his chief lieutenant. On the other, I killed his familiar. There's no telling what he would decide to do about me."

"So you're just going to let him take Hogwarts?" Weasley demanded.

"Well, I suppose I could…" she drawled, but then she shook her head, and the Baron's mark pulsed with cold. "But no. I have my own reasons for wanting him dead."

Her patron had ordered Voldemort's annihilation before her seventeenth birthday, and this was likely the best chance she was going to get. If she passed it up now… A shiver went down her spine. She had witnessed Death's wrath once, and there was no way she wanted it to be turned against her for failing to complete his command.

"You're all crazy," Cedric said. He sighed and continued, "And I must be crazy, too. If you're going to take on the Death Eaters and You-Know-Who, I'll stand behind you. Where are they?"

The four Lions exchanged glances before Longbottom finally spoke. "He's supposed to be to the south, but we don't know exactly where or if he's moved."

 _Charging ahead without crucial intelligence or even the bare bones of a plan_. She shook her head in disappointment.  _And Gryffindors wonder why the rest of us think them fools_. She would not make a move without knowing where everyone was, but how was she supposed to do that? She had attempted to scry for him shortly after the Baron had given her her mission, but Voldemort had been smart enough to ward or charm himself against that. Eberhardt's Dark Arts notes had mentioned possession, which would let her search him out without putting herself at risk, but the notes did not contain any instructions or even specific details, and she had neglected to research the topic in the family library. Sure, she could try to reconstruct the spell on her own with any stray pets they ran into in the area – conjured or transfigured animals, unfortunately, did not have the natural living essence she would need to latch on to – but what creature would have stuck around with all the gunshots and howls echoing through Hogsmeade?

The flutter of wings from behind her caught her attention, and bird with a very recognizable magical core came into her sonar's range and landed on her shoulder. "One of these days," she muttered as she held out her right forearm for Loki to hop onto, "I'm going to figure out how you always seem to be where I need you the exact moment I realize I need you."

Her pet and ally burbled happily, and she gave him a tender stroke of his breast feathers. Possession was easier with creatures a witch already had an emotional connection to, but again she ran into the same issue of not knowing what she was doing. Not to mention that while possessing Loki might be theoretically easier, she was far more adverse to experimenting with the spell considering a failed possession could mean the creature's death. Her raven was no mere pet; he was a true familiar, bound to her by magic as well as his love for her, not to mention that he had been extensively modified by Elsie before her death. He looked at her, his gaze trusting and unnaturally knowing, and she knew exactly what she was going to do.

What was the point of manipulating the magic of the world by her will alone if she wasn't going to cheat occasionally?

Jen brought Loki closer and rested her forehead against his, their eyes drifting closed as one. She had no clue if this was going to work, but it was worth a shot. The pulsing of his core began to slow, synchronizing with her heartbeat rather than his own, and where their heads met a faint pressure developed. "I need your help, sweetie," she whispered. "Fly high and find our quarry, but I have to see where he is, so we're going to try something a little different. When you go up, lend me your eyes. Let me see what you see." Something like vertigo swept over her for a moment but passed as quickly as it had come, and she opened her eyes.

And looked upon her own face, purple eyes filmed over and sightless.

"That's creepy," Weasley muttered as she threw her arm up and tossed Loki into the air. Her reliance on her sonar rather than her sight proved to be an advantage, and she ignored what his eyes told her before he regained his equilibrium and could fly normally.

"Creepy?" Granger hissed at the boy. "Try impossible. I've never heard of anyone doing something like that."

" _'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophies'_ ," she quoted with a smirk. The other witch scowled at her. "And yes, my sight may be elsewhere at the moment, but I can still hear you just fine. Keep the insults to a minimum, if you please."

Cedric stepped closer and murmured to her, "Lets get behind cover before somebody else finds us." Taking hold of her left arm and placing her hand on his shoulder, he started walking deeper into the alley. She rolled her eyes as she realized what he was doing – if only he knew that she had been blind for years and needed no help walking around without her sight! – but then she stumbled and had to lean against him for support for a second when Loki's vision spun and disoriented her. Apparently she had more control over her familiar's eyes than she thought.

 _May as well make use of it_. Trusting Cedric not to lead her into a wall, she focused on Loki. Her raven was already headed southerly, and he drifted side to side for a few minutes as she directed his eyes at different areas of interest. Admittedly, most of those spots turned out to be bodies, singly or in groups, but each one ticked her estimation of the casualty rate higher. Fifty or so that she could see, possibly half again as many in the houses? Around a third of the village's daytime population slaughtered in less than an hour. If Voldemort wanted to clear out any possible resistance before he took the castle, he had done an admirable job at it. An upwards glance sent Loki high enough to survey the entire town, and from that vantage point Voldemort was easy to pick out.

"Found him," she said. That broke the silence that had fallen over their motley group, and the other five glanced at her from their scattered places in the sitting room she found herself in.  _When did we enter a house?_ , she wondered now that she was paying attention to her sonar again; had she really been so out of it that she hadn't noticed? Shaking off her surprise, she continued, "He's just outside of town. Eight Death Eaters with him, but I doubt they're bodyguards; more likely they are the ones controlling the Muggles. What's really interesting is that they're all surrounded by some kind of silver fire."

"Silver?" Granger repeated dumbly.

"That is what I said. Best guess, it's some kind of protection against the wolves he brought with him, but exactly what it is I haven't a clue." Nor could she narrow the options down much. With Voldemort being a black wizard, it was impossible for him to use light magic or even be in its presence for long, but this could be a normal or dark spell, instead. Then there was Nyarlathotep's blessing to consider. Soul mages could emulate the magics bequeathed by other Dark Powers, and she had personally witnessed him tapping into fae magics the year before. Changing fire so it warded off werewolves was well within the capabilities of the Unseelie. If that was what this was, she did not want to guess what other properties he might have switched. Averting Loki's eyes from the group, she pointed him at the castle and waited until he was far enough away that no stray curse could hit him to release her tentative grip on his senses; her eyelids fluttered for a moment before her own sight returned.

Longbottom turned to his friends, and she had to suppress a grin at how pointedly he was ignoring her and Cedric. Did he even know he was doing it? She had heard from Kenneth that he held a grudge against her for what Bellatrix had done to his parents, the same grudge Augusta held for the Blacks as a group according to Sirius, and even though he presumably knew the truth of her heritage, it was clearly influencing his view of her. Or, she supposed, it could be that he was still sore about being stunned during the Tournament the previous year. "What are we going to do?"

"Well, Cedric could always Side-Along me to a rooftop and I'll just hit them with a wide-area spell," she suggested sweetly. It probably would not work against Voldemort himself, but the Death Eaters were too distracted to defend themselves, especially if she hit them hard and fast. Between the general personality necessary for someone to dedicate himself to a Dark Power and what she had observed from him specifically, whether he would defend his soldiers or just himself was a coin toss.

Weasley gaped at her, as if astonished that she would ever offer so cowardly an option, but amazingly Potter and Granger actually seemed to consider it. After a moment, that period of clarity passed, and Potter shook his head. "I don't know if something like that would be enough to take down You-Know-Who, and he would just  _Ennervate_  the Death Eaters again. He'd probably run away, too, and then this would be a victory for him." He scowled and looked down at his hands before adding in a tight voice, "I want all this to end  _today_ , while we have the chance."

That made two of them, probably the first time they had agreed on anything since they were in nappies. If she was going to kill Voldemort to satisfy the Baron's demands, however, she needed to do something about the Death Eaters he had brought with him. She did not want to get into a nine-on-one fight. Her eyes drifted over the Lions, and an idea began to form.

"Then you had better harden your heart," she warned her half-brother. The boy met her eyes in surprise. "War is no place to preach about redemption or forgiveness or second chances like Dumbledore has been known to do. You truly want this to end? He will only stop once he's dead. If you hesitate out of some misguided impulse to offer him mercy, he will kill you without a thought, and I won't lift a finger to stop him. Get in my way when I try to kill him so you might give him that chance, and I'll cut you down myself."

"And you think we're going to trust you after that?!" Granger protested. Weasley and Longbottom nodded, and even Cedric, riffling through a desk in the corner, looked a little unsure. Potter, on the other hand, kept silent, his expression expectant.

"I don't expect you to trust me. I don't particularly  _want_ you to trust me." She shook her head and returned her gaze to Potter. "But the facts of the matter are this: I want him dead, you want him dead, but neither of us can kill him on our own. What is the old proverb? The enemy of my enemy is my friend? I want him dead a great deal more than I want you in the grave. Honestly," she added with a dark laugh, "I wouldn't bear you any real ill will if you and your family would just leave me alone."

"So what exactly are you suggesting?" he asked quietly. "Just so we both know where we stand."

"We put our personal issues aside for today and deal with You-Know-Who. Tomorrow…" Snorting quietly, she said, "We'll deal with tomorrow tomorrow."

Granger and Longbottom shared uneasy glances, and they pulled Potter into the hallway at the other end of the living room they had shared. A discreet twirl of her fingers stuck a listening charm on Weasley's robe when he walked over to join them, and she conjured what looked like a small glob of water filled with glitter and stuck it in the ear not in Cedric's field of view. She did not know what the Gryffindors were going to say, but considering who made up the group, she was sure someone would say something she didn't want getting out to the general public.

 _"I don't like this,"_  Granger whispered.  _"We can't trust her."_

 _"I'm not so sure about that,"_  Potter disagreed.

_"Mate, she just threatened to kill you if you don't watch yourself. That's about as far from trustworthy as you can get. Only Slytherins would stab someone in the back, and she acted proud of it!"_

_"Except I don't think that's what she meant."_  Hesitating a second, Potter continued,  _"She said she would kill me if I stopped her, and she would let me die if You-Know-Who went to kill me while I offered him a second chance. But that means if I'm helping her, she'll do what she can to keep me alive. Right?"_

The three Lions were silent, and finally Weasley answered,  _"I don't know. That's what a normal person would say, but every time you've talked to her, it sounds like she's saying one thing and meaning another. Besides, her House is big into politics, and you know you can't trust them when they get into that double-talk."_

 _"Ron, my family is part of the Wizengamot, too, you know,"_  Potter said with a dry laugh.  _"Neville, you've been quiet ever since we met up with her and Diggory. What do you think about all this?"_

Longbottom sighed.  _"I don't like her. The woman she's claiming as her mother drove my parents insane, and if Gran's right and they had the goblins do a blood adoption to trick the Ministry, then she's going to continue that line. If I were in your shoes, I'd Stun her right now and find someone else to help capture You-Know-Who, someone I could actually count on._

_"But she's your sister. I know there's a chance we won't make it out of this alive, a big chance, but besides standing up to him being the right thing to do, we grew up like brothers. I'd follow you all the way to Tartarus if you asked, just like I know you'd do for me. She wouldn't, not unless it was to laugh as you fell, but we both know if she came up to you and asked for help, you'd give it to her because you're a good person, a lot better than she deserves._

_"So, I guess… I guess my answer is that if you want to give her a chance, fine. We'll go along with it."_  There was a second of silence that Jen presumed was filled by Granger and Weasley nodding.  _"But while you may trust her, we don't. I'm definitely going to keep an eye on her while you two are standing up to You-Know-Who. If she keeps to her end of the deal, though… Like she said, we'll deal with tomorrow tomorrow."_

She flicked her finger to dismiss her spells and cocked her head when Potter's retinue returned. "If we want this to work, we need to move quickly. Everything can't be a decision by committee. What's your answer?"

Potter looked to each of his friends for just a moment, gauging their reactions again, and then he turned back to her and nodded. "We still need to come up with a plan."

"Jen, can you draw where in town You-Know-Who is and where the buildings around him are?" Cedric asked, bringing a few rolls of parchment and a quill over. "Because I think I might just have one."

* * *

**As I understand it, the U.K.'s stringent handgun laws didn't come into effect until 1997, so Voldie's Imperiused Muggles using them isn't impossible. I'm really cutting it close, though.**

**Silently Watches out.**


	43. Victorious Defeat

**It is not my fault this chapter is late! It's taken me this long to make FFN accept the update, so any and all complaints should be directed to the admins.**

**"Voldemort wouldn't care if handguns were illegal":** The comment about gun laws was referring to availability, not legality. During the gun buyback program the U.K. ran from July 1997 to February 1998, the government collected 162,000 handguns according to one of the sources I consulted, as well as 700 tons of ammunition. That's… not insubstantial.

**This is the final chapter of** _**Black Princess Ascendant** _ **. The third and penultimate book in the series,** _**Coronation of the Black Queen** _ **, will be up in three weeks, and for those of you who don't have me on their Author Alerts (shame on you!), I'll add a temporary note at the end of this story as a reminder when it's posted.**

**Disclaimer:**  When Harry and co., the Death Eaters, and the Order broke into the Ministry, was it Fudge and other administrators who were first on the scene to investigate rather than the DMLE? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.

* * *

**Chapter 43**

**Victorious Defeat**

"This is a terrible plan."

Cedric rolled his eyes. "You're just saying that because it's not your plan."

"No, I'm saying that because it's objectively a terrible plan."

The Head Boy sighed in mild exasperation, and Jen grit her teeth and turned away. She had tried to tell them that this would not work, but did they listen to her? Granger's 'bright idea' had been to try to blind the Death Eaters in a cloud of smoke, and though it was eventually decided that a wall of sand and grit would be more effective on that front, the other five had ignored her warning of what the Death Eaters would likely do when confronted with such a situation. They believed their enemies would hold back from doing anything for fear of hitting their allies, and if it were Danny and his friends having their sight taken away, she supposed that plan might work. But the Death Eaters?

She figured they would just fire Killing Curses indiscriminately and slaughter anything that got in the way. It was what she would do in their position.

 _Then again, that shouldn't be too much a surprise_ , she silently groused.  _After all, Potter thought I was just going to stun the Death Eaters. Why won't these fools realize that while Voldemort is by far the most dangerous enemy, it's his army that elevates him from terrifying wizard to potential conquerer? Just kill them all, and no one will be able to restart the war once he's dead._

Shaking her head, Jen peered around the corner of the building at her nine targets. Voldemort and the Death Eaters were just outside of town, past the security offered by the buildings; instead they were just standing out in the open, their only protection that strange ring of silver fire. None of the Death Eaters were moving much, their attention on the Muggles they were controlling, but Voldemort himself prowled the inside of the circle. He must be the final defense, which made sense when she thought about it. Besides a familiar, which in this case was dead at her hands, who would a black wizard entrust his safety to? No one.

"What are you waiting for? Let's get this over with," Weasley grumbled.

"Patience is a virtue you Gryffindors lack," she snapped back. "It's one of the many, many reasons the rest of us look down on you as reckless morons. I, however, am taking the time to make sure this actually works. Unless you'd like to do this in my place?"

Weasley sneered and turned away rather than continue the argument. And rightly so; she was the only one who could produce the miniature sandstorm, and that meant conforming to her timetable.

 _But if I'm the only one who can do this…_  A faint smirk came to her lips as she considered what that meant, and she looked over the path with different eyes. She was going to start the spell  _here_ , and it would change  _there_ , and as long as it crossed the intervening distance, that could work just fine. "I'm going to cast this spell twice," she warned her temporary allies, "so don't charge out as soon as the first one appears. It won't end well. Wait five or ten seconds after the second one hits before you do something stupid."

"Do you ever get tired of insulting other people's intelligence?" Longbottom asked in a forcibly light tone of voice.

She cocked her head and legitimately thought that question over for a few seconds. "Not when it's deserved, no. And rushing the lynchpin of this 'plan'? Pretty bloody stupid. Ready?"

Just behind her and doing an excellent job of ignoring his friends' scowls of frustration, Potter nodded. "Let's do it."

Jen slapped her hand onto the earth and let her power flow. A visible ripple shot out from her palm and toward the Death Eaters, and five feet into its course it started ripping the ground apart and tossing the debris into the air. The spell swelled as it ate up the space between her and her foes, the storm of dirt reaching for the sun. Ten feet tall, fifteen,  _twenty_ , and growing wider at the same rate. When the wave was nearly upon the Death Eaters, their voices proof that they were not as out of it as they might have first appeared, it changed. The dust grew darker, then it clumped together, and what fell upon them was a wall of knives.

Their screams of shock and pain were like music to her ears.

"What the hell was that?!"

Her allies' surprise, however, not so much. Ignoring Granger's screech, she grunted, "Number two." Sprinting around the back of the building, she ran into the open space on the other side from where she had launched her attack and jumped. An outstretched arm called up her gravity well, and as she flew forward and only the slightest bit higher, the ground churned beneath her and spiraled up to meet her feet like a gigantic worm. That second storm followed while she took a circling course around her enemies, the cloud growing the more earth she pulled up with her, and on that path she had a chance to examine just how much damage her previous attack had wrought. Her knives lay on the ground, the vast majority making a ring around the group but still a substantial number having fallen among the terrorists. With only a split second of warning, Voldemort had been unable to deflect the entire attack, and four of the eight Death Eaters were on the ground. Two of them, their robes torn by the falling blades and one with his left arm dangling uselessly at his side, slowly stood while she watched; unfortunate, but that was still two dead.

She and Potter would need to work together to fight Voldemort, as galling a prospect as that was, and originally that meant Cedric and Potter's friends would have been at a four-to-eight disadvantage. She doubted they could each handle two Death Eaters, but now it was only six enemies, five if she considered that the two injured would be unable to fight at their full capabilities. The Lions had better thank her for her forethought when this was all over.

A jerk of her arm steered her and the cloud right at the Death Eaters, and she could not help the cackle that burst from her chest. A barrage of pale green curses were flung at her, forcing her to swerve out of the way before the Killing Curses could touch her. She soared skywards, the sandstorm rearing up below her. With a twitch of her left hand, she cast a brace of spells on the cloud, and then she vanished. A faint crack heralded her reappearance above the fray; she hung there just long enough to see the cyclone of dust crash down upon them and flow into a dome that would blot out the light before she teleported again.

The air here was thinner, and she was thankful her gravity well could hold her up without constant direction as she gasped desperately for oxygen. A few seconds passed before she forced herself to calm down and keep taking deep breaths in hopes that her body would adjust. The index finger of her left hand hastily sketched out a mannuz rune into the empty sky; binding her flight spell to the rune, she just let herself drift weightlessly for a second before moving on to the next part of her plan. Hopefully it would work better against Voldemort than it had against Flitwick.

Her magic sprayed out from her fingers and wove itself into a net, the fibers catching on the currents of power present even over a kilometer above the surface of the earth, and the fabric stretched out wider and wider. She had –  _Say 1,500 meters up, initial velocity is 0, acceleration rounds to 10, rearrange the equation for t, so_ … – maybe seventeen or eighteen seconds before she hit the ground once she started falling? Not enough time for the fabric of her spell concentration to reach its full size, and hastening this would see it fail.

She let her net billow out as she shook her head. They would just have to survive long enough without her until she was ready. Hopefully Cedric could manage that.

* * *

The sinister cackle made Danny wince as he watched Black dodge Killing Curses and plow a huge conjured sandstorm into the Death Eaters' position. Even knowing the truth, he could see why people would believe that she was Lestrange's daughter. Neville gritting his teeth beside him was proof that he was not the only one who could see that.

But he had to admit that watching his sister ride a tornado into battle was still just plain awesome.

"Come on, Jen, get out of there," Cedric muttered.

Danny looked around the dome of dust; sure enough, he could not see hide nor hair of her. "She's probably just on the other side where we can't see her," he said, pointedly ignoring the other – and, if he were going to be honest, more likely – possibility that she was stuck in there with nine hardened killers. "But we've waited long enough. Let's go!"

He, his friends, and Cedric charged out from behind the building, and they immediately started spreading out, especially once a few random bolts of green flashed out in the direction of where Black had last been seen.  _You better be safe_ , he thought at her,  _because Mum and Dad would be devastated if you got yourself killed_.

Without warning, the cloud of dirt crashed to the ground, and in the middle of the ring of Death Eaters and black knives stood Voldemort, his wand pointed at the sky and his blood-red gaze sliding over the ground that was once more visible. Black was nowhere to be found, but when the Dark Lord's eyes landed on Danny, he knew that she had probably gotten the better end of the deal.

"Stick to the plan!" he shouted, and scarlet Stunning Spells flashed out of their wands at the Death Eaters. He purposefully kept his eyes averted from the two Death Eaters laying motionless on the ground, daggers stabbed into their bodies as though they were pincushions; after Voldemort revealed himself at Diagon Alley, his father had taken him aside to tell him a few hard truths about war, and one of those was that seeing someone dead was very different from seeing them asleep or unconscious. There was just something inherently wrong about a corpse, and now was not the time to chance freezing up like his dad said he had done the first time  _he_  saw someone killed in battle.

The Death Eaters did not fall to the onslaught of hexes, but having to raise shields to protect them did tie up their wands, so at least he and his friends did not have to worry about the evil wizards trying to kill them just yet. Voldemort, on the other hand, seemingly slapped the spells that Danny sent at him out of the air with an almost negligent air, and then he returned fire.

Danny dropped to the ground when the golden comet flew through the air, and then he barely had time to roll to the side before the next one hit the ground where he lay. Pink, then blue, then a near-invisible lavender, but never the pale green Moody had shown them in his demonstrations of the Unforgivables. Was Voldemort seriously not trying to kill him?

"Forget about the Muggles," the bald wizard barked. Another flick of his wand, and a deep purple curse cut through the air and slammed into Diggory's side. The older boy screamed and fell to the ground as a chunk of his body as big as Danny's head suddenly just disappeared. "Just kill the brats."

The Death Eaters dropped their shields and shifted to the sides to evade the Stunners coming after them, and then they attacked. Danny's heart was in his throat as he watched Hermione just barely get out of the way of a violently blue crescent of flame only to run right into the dark red of a Cruciatus, and a jet of flat grey slammed into Neville's left leg, sending him to the ground as that leg bent the wrong way in the middle of his thigh. Turning his head back to Voldemort, he tried and failed to swallow when he saw the totally unamused expression on the Dark wizard's face and that pale wand pointing at his chest.

A flapping sound from up above, growing steadily louder, distracted him from the inevitable death staring him in the face. He was not the only one, for Voldemort flicked his eyes skyward for just a second. Then his head whipped back to stare at the clouds.

Danny chanced a longer look up as well, and immediately he saw what was so interesting. Black was falling directly on top of them, arms and legs splayed out; as they watched in that brief moment, a bolt of lightning arced from one hand to another. Then the spell that sight had cast on them was broken. She shoved her hands at the ground, a beam of bright white light streaked downwards, Voldemort twirled on his heel and vanished, and Danny spun around and took one, two panicking steps away.

Behind him, everything blew up.

A giant's hand smashed into his back, the blow tossing him into the air like so much dandelion fluff. The wind whipped past him silently, the only noise in his ears a flat whine, and the ground rose up to slam into him. He bounced off the hard-packed earth and hit the ground again before he rolled over and over and over again. Finally coming to a stop, he lay on the ground for just a moment, taking stock of his body and making sure nothing was broken, before he unsteadily climbed to his feet.

Looking around, he saw that they were alone. Voldemort and the Death Eaters were nowhere to be found, the ring of unnatural fire having guttered out with their disappearance; Ron and Hermione were rising from the ground just like he had after that explosion; Neville was laying still, though the rise and fall of his chest proved that he was still alive; and Black was crouched over Diggory, his robes ripped open and her hands planted firmly on his chest. He staggered drunkenly over to her, and though he could not hear what incantation she was using over the ringing that filled his ears, he could see the results as he got closer. Something inside the Head Boy's body shifted in the darkness, causing the steady stream of blood pouring out through the hole in his side to slow to a trickle. White bone grew out of the shattered ends of his ribs to meet in the middle, and then red strands of muscle wrapped themselves around the new bone. Skin stretched over the exposed flesh to complete the healing. Diggory might be unconscious and far too pale, but he was alive.

Black climbed to her feet and turned around to glare at him, her purple eyes hard as glass. Her mouth stretched and twisted as she snarled something totally inaudible. For a moment, he seriously considered saying nothing in response – not having to listen to her was an unforeseen benefit to being deaf, after all – but finally he shook his head and pointed to his ears with one hand. "I can't hear you!" he shouted, though he did not hear his own words, either.

His sister stared flatly at him for a second before beckoning him closer with two fingers. Cautiously he approached, and she snagged his hand with her own. A pop echoed in both his ears, followed by all the sounds around them, and she jerked her hand back as though he was something filthy she could not bare to touch for longer than necessary.

Still, she  _had_  just healed him. "Thanks." A short nod in response, and he asked, "Is Diggory…?"

"He'll be fine so long as we can get him somewhere safe. I patched up the hole, but it will be better for his marrow if it replenishes the missing blood on its own." Black scowled at something over his left shoulder. "No thanks to you."

"What did I do?!" Hermione protested, grabbing his shoulder to take some of the weight off her shaking legs.

"Nothing, and that's the problem!" Black's voice dropped to a growl. "You had one job: deal with the Death Eaters. And you couldn't even do that!"

Oh boy, this wasn't good. His best girl friend puffed up and snapped back, "We did what we could! Maybe if you had followed the plan instead of running off, it would have worked!"

"Yes, I 'ran off'," Black repeated with a sneer. " _After_  I killed two of them on my own and handed you two more on a silver bloody platter! And unlike you, I was at least doing something productive with that time. Do you think a spell that can kill a Dark Lord in one hit is  _easy_? I needed to set it up, and like a fool I was counting on you to at least keep them occupied so he couldn't dodge it."

"So the plan didn't work out quite like we wanted it to," Ron said, stepping in between the two witches before the hexes started flying. "It doesn't really matter. We still ran them off."

Hermione grimaced at that, and the reason why was explained when Black laughed mockingly. "You think things are that simple, that Evil will take one look at a proud stand by Good and flee to safety with its tail between its legs? They're still here. I just don't know exactly where."

With a gasp, Hermione grip tightened. "They left us here so they can head for Hogwarts."

" _Pakèt moun sou idyo Limyè_ ," Black muttered, earning her a strange look from Hermione. Maybe she was speaking French? " _Pa menm ka goumen dwat_. Then what are standing around here for?" She waved one hand, sunlight glinting off the silvery bracers she had placed around her forearms before they left the house they had taken refuge in, and the iron knives laying on the ground flew into the air and reshaped themselves into a statue of an enormous black panther. Another wave had it shaking itself like a cat waking up from a nap and moving to stand over Diggory.

"What about Neville?" Ron demanded as Black started jogging back toward Hogsmeade.

"He's close enough that it should defend him from anyone trying to attack. Now come on!"

Danny shared an agonized look with his friends. They shouldn't leave Neville behind – it felt wrong to even consider that – but he didn't know what his god-brother had been hit with besides the curse that broke his leg. Even if that were all, his sister was petty enough that she would probably refuse to heal him after the way he called her out on her attitude. After a moment, Ron stepped back and drew his wand. "I'll  _Mobilicorpus_  him over to where Diggory is, then catch up. You two chase after her before she gets too far ahead."

"You sure?" At Ron's nod, Danny and Hermione staggered after their fickle ally. After thirty paces, he ground his teeth and shouted, "Black, wait up!"

The dark-haired girl skidded to a stop between two houses at his call, shocking the Gryffindors and allowing them to catch up in the process. That really worked? Black took a couple of steps back, and then what caused her to stop became obvious. The row of buildings directly in front of her broke apart and rose into the air, walls and roofs shifting around as the houses connected to one another. The tube lifted one end of its length into the air, and that end split open to reveal shards of glass and wood sticking out like swords. With a hiss that made the ground beneath them shudder, the house-snake turned its eyes, formed from hearths and still glowing with embers, upon them and reared back to attack.

"Well," Black muttered, "that's new. Potter!"

"What?"

"Keep it busy for a tic!"

"How am I supposed to do that?!"

She ignored him and fell to one knee, her fingers clawing at the shallow layer of dirt, and with a groan he emulated Hermione and pulled out his wand. " _Incendio Orbis_!" they yelled together, globs of red-orange fire hurtling up at the construct's gaping maw. The fireballs his father had taught them to cast just that term exploded upon contact with the reconfigured carpentry, and the gargantuan serpent reared back as several more pelted it before it returned its angry gaze to them, the buildings that made up its hide burning but the fact not even inconveniencing it.

Thankfully, that was enough time for Black to finish whatever it was she was doing. She jerked her shoulders back, her hands now buried up to the wrist in mud, and the ground in front of them cracked and ripped. Chunks of rock shot skyward, which then shattered as thick brown sludge poured forth in columns. The pillars of mud writhed and rippled like tentacles to wrap around the snake. While it struggled, rips appeared in the tentacles' surface; some opened up to reveal hideous eyes, glowing green like phosphorus and bearing not one but two slit-like pupils, but others bristled with rows and rows of needle-sharp teeth that bit into the snake's wooden scales. The mouths not occupied with holding the snake screamed their battle cry, the ululating sound burning in Danny's bones and paralyzingly his heart as he envisioned being eaten, being crushed, being ripped into by talons and gored by horns and melted by bubbling spit.

And through it all, Black  _laughed_. "Appreciate the irony, Tommy boy?!" she screamed to the empty air, her voice filled with rage and exaltation and terrifying insanity.

At her taunt, the snake collapsed, and she ripped her hands out of the ground. The eldritch horror fell back to earth and melted, simple mud once more. "That got his attention, at least," she told them in a nonchalant tone, slapping her hands together to knock off the mud clinging to them as if unleashing this kind of horrid evil was all in a day's work for her. "Now comes the tricky part."

"Tricky?" Hermione echoed tiredly. Either casting their spells or weathering that unnatural shriek had taken more out of her than he expected if she was acting like this, and he chanced a look back. Her face was drawn, she was resting even more of her weight on him than before, and every few seconds her eyes lost focus for an instant before returning to the world around her. Ignoring his worried examination, she continued, "What are you talking about?"

"There are two ways I can see this playing out," came Black's slow answer. "One, he keeps his mind on the objective. He continues advancing toward Hogwarts, leaving a couple of Death Eaters behind to delay or, preferably, eliminate us. Two, he takes me trumping his construct as a blow to his ego. The Death Eaters are the ones who move onward, and it's him we'll find waiting for us. Alternatively, he decides we are a threat he has to deal with personally, which leads to the same end result."

"Option three," Ron added, coming out from behind a building where he had presumably taken shelter behind during the clash of those titanic summonings – and if that were the case, Danny couldn't find it in himself to criticize – "we find You-Know-Who  _and_  the Death Eaters waiting for us."

"Then we're all going to die," she replied in a much-too-chipper voice. "Seriously. Killing You-Know-Who by myself is going to be hard enough as it is. Fighting six Death Eaters, too? Not going to happen." She stopped and tilted her head for a moment. "Well, not unless I burn the whole damn town down, too. That might not be a bad idea, actually."

"Except you're not going to be alone. We agreed to fight alongside you, and we're not going to back down just because things have gotten harder," Danny reminded her.

"Ha!" Black belted out mockingly. "After your little demonstration earlier, you'll have to forgive me if I don't think much of your idea of 'help'."

A scowl grew on his face; so much for her earlier realization that she couldn't do this alone. Unfortunately, he couldn't bring himself to abandon her to her death like this, nor could he bear the thought of telling his parents that she was dead, intolerable though she might be even at the best of times. Instead, he cajoled, "But a little help is better than none, isn't it?"

Incredibly, she seemed to consider his words. "Fair enough," she finally answered. He sighed and grinned at her admission, only for her to follow it up with, "Weasley, take Granger somewhere else."

"I'm part of this, too!" his bookworm friend retorted.

"Your hands are trembling," his sister pointed out. "You look like you're about to pass out any second now. You can't even stand on your own two feet." At that, Hermione tried to support herself, and though it was a valiant effort, she immediately collapsed back onto Danny's back. "The Cruciatus doesn't just wear off in a few minutes. Face it, Granger; you are a liability."

"Hermione," he said when she opened her mouth to argue, "if it was me or Ron in your shoes, you'd have said the same thing. In a nicer way, sure, but you wouldn't let us keep going."

"But…" She trailed off, and after a long moment she nodded miserably. "Stay safe," she said, then she leaned in and added, "You can't trust her any more than You-Know-Who. Watch your back around her." He gave her a solemn nod and helped her shift her weight onto Ron.

Watching the two staggering off, he sighed and turned back to his sister. "Looks like it's just you and me again, just like that Halloween. Except this time, we can fight back."

"Hmm." She turned her back on him. "Let's hope it ends better than it did last time, then."

"We don't have to worry about our grandfather dying, I guess," he joked morbidly.

"I was actually talking about the part where you survived." And with that incredibly disturbing comment, she started walking deeper into town.

* * *

Despite walking through several rows of houses, the smile on Jen's face still had yet to fade. Part of it was that her bout of gallows humor still amused her, but that Potter had yet to realize she was joking just made it funnier.

Her feet came to a stop in the middle of the road, and her eyes focused on the spacious courtyard hidden behind the building ahead. Whether it be subconscious tactical thinking or bearing a similar mindset to her quarry or just being a perfect arena, she  _knew_  that Voldemort was waiting for them there. She lifted her hand in a silent call for Potter to stop, and then she turned around to face him, smile gone as she grew deadly serious. "I have a question for you, and I need a straight answer." His eyes roved over her face before he gave her a nod. "If you were in a position where you had a perfect shot at him – he couldn't dodge, couldn't block, didn't even know you were there – could you kill him?"

"Well… I mean, if I had a clear shot at him like that, obviously I could hit him—"

"That's not what I was asking, and you know it," she said, her sharp whisper cutting him off. "A child could hit him. I'm asking, if you had the chance, would you use a lethal curse?"

"I know he needs to be stopped, and you said he'd only stop once he's dead…"

She took in the uncertainty painted all over his face and scoffed. This really should not be a hard decision; if he had asked that question to her, her answer would have been  _'In a heartbeat'_ , but Potter? It was shocking that he could claim to be related to her when he couldn't even do something as simple as end a threat to his very existence.

Killing was  _easy_. She knew that from plentiful personal experience. The only hard part in this situation was getting into position to do so.

"You couldn't, could you? You can't even bring yourself to talk about it."

"It's not that simple!" he hissed, his eyes burning in frustration. "Killing someone, even someone like Voldemort… That isn't something any decent person should do. You especially shouldn't be so… so cavalier about it!"

She sneered at him and turned away. And the Light wondered why they had spent a decade  _losing_  the last war? It was a good thing she was around to clean up this mess; if it were up to Potter, he'd have to rely on his wand inexplicably acting of its own accord and killing Voldemort for him or something. What kind of rational person would ever say that it was immoral to execute a megalomaniacal psychopath actively trying to take over the world and commit genocide? "I suppose that makes it easier to decide who gets what role in this, at least," she finally said in a forced, bright tone.

"What are you talking about?"

"You get to be the bait."

"Bwuh?!"

Jen rolled her eyes and jerked her thumb at the courtyard. "Keep him busy – better than you did last time, preferably – until I get a shot. Oh, and if you didn't notice it, he has excellent aim; last year, every curse he threw went exactly where he wanted it." She gave him a cheery smile. "Try not to die. That'll just make my job harder than it already is."

Ignoring his spluttered protests, she jogged down the road. Between one step and the next, her feet were silenced, and with the step after that, she faded out of sight. Her sight was gone, but her much-reduced sonar still let her run down the road to the last building before she would have passed the end of the courtyard. Her arm flew up, her gravity well appeared, and she fell upward to land on the roof. Only once she was sure she would be hidden from the courtyard did she let her invisibility fall away.

A quick look over the peaked roof proved what she had known in her gut: Voldemort was waiting for them, standing in the middle of the courtyard and tapping the tip of his wand in his left palm impatiently. Several seconds passed before Potter finally crept into view, and when he spotted the boy, the Dark Lord actually smiled. "Ah, and the hero of the story shows his face. I was beginning to worry that you wouldn't come."

"So now you want to talk," Potter bit out. It was not the best taunt he could come up with, but Jen narrowed her eyes as the words filtered through her mind. Why  _was_  Voldemort talking? In the graveyard, it had made sense; he was trying to convert her, a total unknown, to his point of view. But here, with someone he knew to be an enemy? What was he doing?

Shaking her head, she tossed that question away. The reason for Voldemort's complacency was secondary to the complacency itself. Unfortunately, he was facing the wrong direction for her to hit him unseen at this angle. Either she needed to move, or…

She nibbled her lip for a second before making the decision. Flitwick knew about it, even knew it was dark magic, but Potter wouldn't recognize it. It was one of the few spells in her arsenal she could control to the extent she would need for this to work and the only one of those that was destructive enough to end Voldemort here and now. Forming two balls of cursed fire, she tossed them behind her and slowly guided them into position. This far away from her, her personalized variant of Fiendfyre still ate away at the grass around them in order to fuel themselves, but with the black wizard as occupied as he was with Potter – he was currently taunting the boy about how he should have chosen the winning side back when he was eleven, which if it were true was a rather interesting titbit – he did not notice the blue and white flames stalking him.

One fireball got into position directly behind him, and she sprung her trap. The cursed fire spiraled outwards like a spear and roared its fury. Faster than she had ever seen him move before, Voldemort whirled around and cast a spell at the flames. With him distracted, she directed the second gout to erupt as well, this time spreading out in random lines that suddenly surged with flame. The walls of fire stretched as high as they could go and then fell on top of him.

The instant before they hit, she felt her spell suddenly get yanked out of her control. The flames bent oddly at a single point, and then the dark fire dwindled enough for her to see what was happening. Her jaw dropped.

"I wondered when you would join us," Voldemort crowed while his wand siphoned up her cursed fire. "Toying with Fiendfyre at such a young age? Tsk tsk." He shoved his wand forward and bent at his waist; the cutting charm Potter had finally worked up the nerve to cast sailed harmlessly over him, and then he straightened up and sucked the last of her spell into his wand. "Clearly you need to learn what happens to children who use magics they… aren't…  _ready for_!"

With his last words, he swung his wand through the air, and the cursed fire poured out again in a long stream. He whipped it through the air, nearly hitting Potter and forcing the Lion to dive to the ground, and with each swing the flaming whip rose higher and higher. It ripped through the house she was standing atop, along with all the rest on the street, and Jen felt it the instant the house decided it could stand no longer. A third ball of flame flew from her palm to strike the whip, returning control of it to her, and she was a bare breath from sending it back at his wand when the crack of teleportation sounded behind her.

She ripped through space and threw herself headlong into the hole, reappearing on the ground, but before she could turn her eyes to where Voldemort stood that vile sound came from her left. Again she teleported away, and again he was immediately alongside her. The ruins of the houses. The corner of the courtyard farthest from where she had watched him. The air three hundred meters above the square. No matter where she went, he was there an instant later. Jen appeared next to Potter and grabbed the shoulder of his robe, and then she was away again, this time to the middle of the courtyard. No sooner had their feet hit the ground than she flung her hand over her head and snapped her fingers.

A wave of white light erupted from her, forming a dome that flashed away in all directions. It had taken no little begging on her part to convince Flitwick to demonstrate the Dragon's Roar Hex so she could duplicate it, and he had done so only after she gave him her word that she would not use it during their duels. It was not, he said, a fair tactic for the purposes of her instruction.

She would have to tell him about this, then, assuming she survived the fight.

The dome petered out once it grew too large for her to sustain, and the shattered debris scattered about them, once homes and shops but now just so much rubble, were proof of her spell's raw power. Unfortunately, it had failed in its goal. Two red triangles, one of their edges joined to make a wedge and ripples dancing over their surfaces, were planted proudly in the ground where Potter had stood just before, and holes ate through them to reveal Voldemort still on his feet and looking sadistically pleased. "You've learned a few new tricks since the last time we met."

Jen bared her teeth at him as her own words came back to haunt her. Even with Death's backing offsetting the support Voldemort received from Nyarlathotep, he still had five decades of experience more than she did, and in that time had learned far more magic than she knew. If she honestly thought killing him was supposed to be simple, then clearly she was just as crazy as Potter.

She needed to end this now, before he inevitably hit her with something that would end her on the spot.

With that thought in mind, she spun around and teleported once again, this time reappearing behind one of the piles of rubble she had created, and her body collapsed to a tiny point. Her little mouse paws scratched desperately as they sought purchase on the large chunks of wood and plaster and stone there were all that was left of the houses, and not a second after she transformed an ear-splitting crack sounded from above her and a thick boot slammed into the ground right next to her head. She hurried out from under Voldemort as fast as she could, scurrying behind him; she needed to change back before he thought to look for her in some other form. His voice boomed in her ears as he said something indistinguishable, but when a curse did not immediately strike her dead, she had to presume that Potter was actually doing his job of distracting him. Now where she wanted to be, she wheeled around, transformed once again, and lunged from her crouch at his legs, pale green light making a halo around both her hands.

Voldemort leapt forward before her own Killing Curses could touch him, and he pointed his wand at the spot where her momentum would quickly take her. She arched her back, bringing her head out of the line of fire, and so she had the perfect opportunity to feel a jet of magic slice through the air and hit the rubble strewn over the ground.

Whereupon it immediately exploded.

The shockwave smashed into her, and she was thrown away from her enemy. Her entire head was ringing like a gong, her sight and hearing and sonar were fractured, and then she fell from her flying arc. Her back slammed into the hard ground, flipping her over so she could hit the earth again with her chest this time. She tumbled over and over before finally coming to a stop, laying on her back and staring up at the cloudless sky.

She painfully pulled her head up to find her field of vision filled with green.

Rolling to the side, she barely managed to evade the Killing Curse coming after her, and she scrambled on her hands and knees behind a low garden wall. Power flooded her body, straightening her nose with a sickening crunch, joining the multiple fragments of her jawbone and regrowing her missing teeth, stabilizing her broken ribs so her left lung could reinflate. "Okay, bad idea," she told herself, her voice raspy over the words until her healing magic un-mangled her throat. The ringing noise and swimming vision stopped once the spell reached her brain, healing the concussion Voldemort had given her.

Jen shook her head; this fight was not going how she hoped it would.  _How many plans have we tried already? Six, seven? How the hell am I supposed to kill him when we can't even lay a finger on him?!_

She did not have much time to think on that before an awful sound reached her. Like molten metal being dripped into her ears, the discordant screech set her nerves on edge and made her want to retch. Two seconds of that horrid noise broke through her self-control and bent her over, leaving her unable to stop the vomit that sprayed out her mouth. Her hands shook, her nerves burned, her magic bucked and twisted, but finally she flicked her fingers and encased her ears in blissful silence.

And yet, thanks to the scar on her wrist digging deeper into her arm, she could tell that still the phoenix song went on.

Slowly, she picked herself up from the ground and turned around to see what had caused this. Back in the courtyard stood Voldemort and Potter, their wands pointed at each other, but rather than slinging spells at each other, they were apparently staring in shock at the thick golden string connecting the tips, a liquid like slag splattering on the ground midway between them. From that point, beams of light arched out and over, forming what was essentially a gigantic birdcage keeping them inside. As she watched, Jen could not help but feel her respect for Voldemort rise; he was a black wizard, in service to the Darkness of the world just as she was, and yet he remained unyielding in the face of a phoenix's cry? That kind of resilience was amazing, enviable, and absolutely terrifying.

Staggering closer to the dueling males, she raised her hand and flicked her fingers at him. Yellow light of her own streaked towards a hole in the cage from whence she could see Voldemort's back, but her blasting curse impossibly bent toward one of the wires and bounced off, flying away uncontrollably to carve a massive divot in the ground.  _Okay, so that's right out_ , she decided, flipping desperately through plan after plan. Whatever this was, it was likely the only chance they had to deal with Voldemort, but nothing she could think of would work! He was just too skilled and, more irritating, too mobile; if she wanted to hit him with something, she would need to pin him down somehow, but the only times she could think of when she could have predicted where he would be were…

…were when he had teleported right next to her.

She licked her lips. That… complicated matters. Pinning him down elsewhere and hitting him with everything she had was one thing; using herself as bait and therefore being in the danger zone was entirely different.  _I can't kill him if I do things that way, but it's the best – the only – chance I have of landing a solid blow on him. Anything I do to him, I'm going to be in the blast radius for, too; that narrows down my options considerably. Add into that my own pitiful magical resistance, and finding a spell that would hurt him without doing even worse damage to me is a challenge. I need something, anything; something that will cripple him but leave me able to finish him off. Something that strikes at a weakness he has that I lack_ —

Her studies bubbled up in her mind, and a plan, utterly incredulous though it was, fell into place. Would that even work? And could she afford to let the opportunity pass her by?

"Potter!" she yelled, her gut clenching as she mentally prepared herself for this absolute folly.  _Please, Baron, let this work_. "Keep him busy for a few more seconds!"

His response, if there was any, could not make it through her silencing charm. Jen knelt on the ground and held her hands out as if in supplication, once again letting her magic pour out as strings that she hastily weaved together. The plan probably did not need this much magic, but excess was better than deficiency, especially when failure meant death. Ten seconds passed, her heart beating faster than she could ever remember it doing before, and then she pulled the net inward and folded it up into a dense ball of energy in her right hand so she could cast it without it trying to channel ever more power through her body like it had done when she dueled Flitwick all those months ago. With her left hand, she reached above her head and traced what was to her perspective a downward-facing arrow into the air, an inverted tiwaz rune. She had never used this character in her runic castings, had never had a reason to, and though now was really not a good time for experimentation, it was not as though she had any other choice. Taking a deep breath and shrugging off her silencing charm despite the phoenix song, she shouted, "Okay, get out of there!"

The cage faded away, and Voldemort vanished.

Her right hand flew up toward the rune hanging in the air.

A crack sounded a mere foot to her right.

Her magic touched the rune.

" _Avada_ —"

The rune exploded.

Jen screamed as the force of the blast slammed down on her like a boulder, and again when sledgehammers slammed into both her knees. She flopped onto the ground and did not even try to hold in the tears that streamed out of her eyes as she felt that sharp ache just get worse and found both her lower legs pointed in the wrong directions. A loud yell dragged her attention from her own agony, and even through the pain she found a smile growing on her face, the smile of a viper that had just injected a lethal dose of venom into the eagle pecking it to death.

"Black!" Voldemort screamed, his long fingers digging at his sternum as a string of cracking noises like popcorn came from him. More accurately, they were digging at the chains of crimson magic ripping themselves out of his chest from that point and cascading down his torso and along his arms. They wrapped tightly around him, the links on the ends zipping back and forth over his hands before hooking onto a point farther up the length; more chains sprang up from those that had slid down his chest and linked the first chains together as well. A third wave crested over his serpentine face, digging into his flesh as they latched onto his nasal slits and his earlobes and the skin of his bald head, and with no little fear in his voice he demanded, "What have you done to me?!"

"Wouldn't you like to know!" she shouted back in pure defiance, a mocking laugh ripping itself from her. Those chains were slithering over her as well, silently rather than so noisily, but she did not care. The tiwaz rune was all about magical and metaphysical bindings, breaking them or forming them, and that was all she really needed. Voldemort was a soul mage; he gained the blessings of his patron Power by snipping off portions of his soul and offering them up in exchange for power. This rune she had used with the sole intent of  _binding_  his soul, crippling him in the worst way she could imagine. The Baron wanted her soul intact, so having it bound together was of no import to her, but Voldemort?

Unless he managed to undo the cruel magic she had just wrought, he could not seek aid from Nyarlathotep. No soul jars to replace the ones she had destroyed. No raising zombies by mimicking Death's magics. No stolen Unseelie boons. He might still have his own magic, he might have his knowledge, but now he was just a regular wizard.

The chains around them puffed into vapor and sank into their skin, and Voldemort's hateful gaze sharpened. He raised his wand, the incantation for what she was sure was yet another Killing Curse already on his lips. She, on the other hand, could only bare her teeth. Her arms twitched at her call, and her magic burned in her skin. After overloading the rune, she was not surprised that she needed a minute to recover before she could repair her legs and rejoin the battle. Voldemort just wasn't going to give her that time.

Green death streaked toward her, and another crack sounded, this time louder than before. In fact, it sounded almost like…

A chunk of marble sprung into existence between her and the curse only to vanish as soon as the spell smashed into it, and a red cloak whipped into her view. Jen raised her head and looked at her savior in surprise. The dark curls cascading down the witch's back threw her for a moment, but otherwise?

Voldemort sneered at the new arrival, but then he had to hop to the side to evade what looked like an iron railway spike surrounded by a colorless haze. The spell instead hit a pile of rubble behind where he had stood, and Jen stared in astonishment as the patch of space around the nail imploded, sucking up the debris into a black hole that vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "I thought Aurors were supposed to capture dark wizards, not try to kill them," he mocked.

"Then maybe you shouldn't have fucked with a Black."

And with the speed of lightning, Dora snapped her wand like a whip. The earth in front of her ripped itself up in a perfect copy of what Jen herself had done not fifteen minutes previously, but her cousin did not wait to see what that would accomplish. No, she jabbed her wand ahead, spraying out a long metal cable festooned with rectangular blades, and then she waved her focus in a circle above her head. A black cloud formed from nothing, thunder rumbling ominously; no sooner had Voldemort dispelled the wave of dirt than he had to throw up another of those triangular shield to deflect the thick and sharp icicles that fell from the sky like malicious hailstones. The strand of razor wire slithered on the ground like a snake, and Jen's eyes widened as she felt the fingers of Dora's left hand twitching as though playing an instrument. Flitwick had told her the previous year that minor feats of wandless magic were necessary to qualify for Auror training, but this showed a much greater degree of control than that statement had implied.

The last few icicles were still falling when Dora hurled another of those spikes, and then she pointed her wand at the ground. The magic that shot out this time was hot enough to make Jen flinch back as much as she could, and when the bolt of light magic hit the dirt, it spread out to cover the courtyard in an invisible smooth surface like an icy lake or a sheet of glass. The instant she estimated that it slid beneath Voldemort, he stumbled, his boots giving him no purchase on the suddenly frictionless earth, and that was when the wire struck. It wrapped around his ankle, biting deeply into his flesh, and using that point as a fulcrum it lashed up and over, winding about the Dark Lord in a parody of how the binding had tightened around him.

 _This is the same woman I bested in a pillow fight this summer?_ , Jen asked herself in amazement. Dora had always come across to her as, well, a bit of a clown, really; ever ready with a joke, concerned more with keeping the family happy than contributing anything Jen had considered of value. Now, though, with teeth bared in righteous fury and eyes hard as steel, striking blow after blow onto a black wizard she herself had only been able to injure with an almost suicidal ploy? Jen felt a frisson of fear slid down her spine. If this was the caliber of the people she would face should her own crimes and powers ever be revealed, then she had greatly –  _laughably_  – overestimated her abilities.

Infinite reserves and wandless casting meant little if her opponents splattered her against a wall before she could make use of those advantages.

With a roar of rage, the razor wire was blown away as a puff of smoke, and the ground around Voldemort screeched and crackled, the magicked earth thrusting out shards of stone to give him better footing. The wizard's robe was ripped into shreds, and a cut on his brow had poured blood over the entire left side of his face, giving his snarl a feral cast. Twice he slashed his wand from shoulder to hip, and though Dora flung up a shield that shimmered like diamond to block what could only be the  _Sectumsempra_  curse Snape had developed in his youth, that was just a distraction. Black and orange flame poured from his wand, growing and growing, and a snake composed entirely of fire struck out.

 _Come on, come on. Move!_  Jen's arms rose at her silent shout, and her nerves were good enough to accomplish this much, at least. A spiral of cursed fire shot out from her palms, and her dark fire clashed against the very curse she had derived it from. Without a proto-sentience to fight for control, she wielded her spell like a sword, parrying the igneous serpent whenever it coiled to try another angle. Twice, thrice she blocked it, and then Dora wheeled her wand arm above and over her shoulder, lobbing a glob of what looked like pink soap suds onto the snake. That innocuous-looking lump of foam ate through the Fiendfyre like acid, snuffing out the flames and flowing down the spell toward Voldemort's wand.

The Dark Lord snarled and vanished. Jen expected him to show up again close by, but instead Dora fell to the ground screaming. Arctic magic, nothing like the metamorph's own, filled the woman's skull and started slipping down her spine. That bastard was trying to possess her! Jen grabbed Dora's chin, turning the witch's face toward her, and seeing dark blue eyes beginning to fill with bloody red, she jabbed her mental probes into her cousin's mind.

She had experience with mind-reading; it was a skill she had practiced for years, and she had become used to the strange, abstract plane she found herself in. Battling someone else for control over a third person's mind? That was a new one. Thankfully she had entered Dora's mind a few times before, so with that previous knowledge it was easy to find the alien consciousness coating Dora's natural mental barriers and trying to seep inside like malevolent ooze. Her will caught hold of the 'center' of Voldemort's mental mass, and with a scream like an ancient valkyrie she forged her rage into a keen edge. Over and over she slammed that conceptual blade into Voldemort; he lashed out at her, his probes scouring like sand and burning like fire, but her barrier was fortified by the magic constantly filtering through her body. Her defenses withstood his distracted blows while each strike she delivered against him drew psychic blood.

Tentacles of hate wrapped around her mind, and with a great wrench he ripped them both out of Dora's head. Voldemort reappeared where he had been; Dora's arms flailed as she tried to regain her mental equilibrium. Her own body had recovered from the stresses her magic put on it while her mind was otherwise occupied, and barely had she imagined it before she screamed in pain while her legs flopped through the air and the fragments of her knees reorganized themselves. Not perfect, not what she could do with some peace and quiet, but it was serviceable enough for this. She staggered to her feet, and while Dora caught hold of her hands, it was not to drag her to safety as she first thought. The Auror instead climbed up her arm until she, too was standing upright.

Voldemort watched the two Blacks before flicking his eyes upward and to the side. Broom-riders were approaching, wearing not the Aurors' red cloaks but instead the black of the Hit Wizards. It was obvious the instant the Dark Lord decided to cut his losses, and though Jen expected him to say something, perhaps offer some threat about how she would rue the day she took up arms against him, he was silent. Instead, he merely gave them both a glare that in its wordless simplicity promised a horrible, agonizing death.

And then he was gone.

* * *

Dora clung tightly to Jen as the girl related the events of the battle with Voldemort to Rufus Scrimgeour, the conjured blanket bunching up beneath her embrace. Jen had protested wearing the thing, saying that she was not cold nor was she in shock, but thankfully she had relented with relatively little argument. Perhaps Jen realized that she really just wanted the girl to wear it for her own sake; Apparating in to find her fifteen-year-old cousin laying battered and broken on the ground yet still defiantly staring down a Dark Lord was something straight out of a nightmare. It had certainly scared her out of her mind.

Though listening to Jen's story, if even half of it was true, she might not have had reason to worry quite so much.

"…I figured he'd appear right next to me like he had all the other times, so I told Potter to stop whatever that was and set off a Concussion Hex right above me. I, er, didn't totally account for how much that was going to affect  _me_ ," Jen added in an embarrassed aside, "but it blew Voldemort across the courtyard. That's when Dora showed up, and you know the rest."

"I see," Scrimgeour said, flicking a suspicious glance at her before returning his attention to Jen. She let out a silent sigh that he wasn't calling her out on anything; she hadn't  _lied_ , exactly, but she figured Jen wouldn't mind her leaving out any reference to the incredibly creepy Legilimency battle the two had waged inside her skull, nor details about those weird blue and white flames. What that spell actually was she hadn't a clue, but there weren't exactly a whole lot of things that could block Fiendfyre. Knowing Jen's penchant for reading from the family library and just what kinds of books could be found there, however, she very much doubted it was something her baby cousin wanted paraded around in front of the head of the DMLE. "Even with what you've told me, the fact that you could stand up to Voldemort in a running battle for even a couple of minutes is astonishing. I cannot think of any fifth-year student anywhere who could claim to be able to do so, and honestly, I would be loath to try it myself now."

"When you don't have a lot of options, you just do what you have to do," Jen replied demurely.

"The only thing I can potentially see becoming an issue is your repeated and blatant use of Apparation," he continued. Jen's shoulders stiffened under her arm, and she shot her best attempt at a quelling look at her boss's boss, which the man either did not see or ignored. Being made director of the entire department hadn't turned him petty, had it? Thankfully, for her continued career if nothing else, he looked to the side as if searching for an eavesdropper before sending Jen a conspiratorial glance. "That said, when you're fighting someone like that, nearly everything can be excused or overlooked. I'll keep that part of your tale out of the official records for your own safety, but I don't want to hear about you Apparating except in an emergency for another year. There's a reason we insist on everyone who wants to Apparate getting a license, you know."

"I understand. Thank you," Jen whispered, looking down at the ground in apparent chastisement.

Scrimgeour nodded and stood. "Auror Tonks, I expect I can leave her in your care for now?"

"You'd be hard-pressed to take her away from me after all this, sir."

"Very well. I expect to see you back at the office tomorrow, then." With that, he turned and strode away, presumably to get an update from the staff who had come along.

Once he was out of earshot, Jen cocked her head and looked at Dora from the corner of her eye. "He isn't much of a people-person, is he?"

"Not really," she admitted. "He's good at what he does, though, was probably one of the best Aurors in recent memory, and he hates the Death Eaters with a passion. And, as you saw, he understands that the rules are more flexible at some times than others. If it were Robards interviewing you, Sirius still would've had to pay the fines for your Apparating."

Jen snorted and let Dora pull her up to their feet, though the girl still wobbled a bit on her first few steps. Scrimgeour had insisted one of the DMLE Mediwizards take a look at her while Dora was giving her own debrief, so Jen's knees were good as new, but the wizard had said that she would be a little unsteady on them for the next couple of hours. "You think your new headmistress will give you grief for coming home a few days early?"

The shaky laugh Jen gave at that was proof of just how long a day the girl had had, and Dora shook her head as she guided her cousin toward the Three Broomsticks. The old pub had been commandeered by St. Mungo's as a triage center, and it was also where most of the interviews were being done; Jen and Danny Potter, having been in the thick of the fighting and the two who had actually faced Voldemort, were the only ones to warrant telling their stories to Scrimgeour personally.

Unfortunately, that short journey took them past several demolished buildings and long rows of bodies under white sheets, and Dora pulled Jen closer. She had been the one to receive Dumbledore's Patronus message about the Muggle stadium being attacked, but the Order's warning about the attack on Hogwarts had instead been intercepted by a different member of the DMLE, who had only listened as far as the mention of werewolves attacking during a new moon before blowing it off as a prank and taking his sweet time telling his supervisor about it. The senior wizard, thankfully, had been far more sensible in his response. Robards had grumbled about it while a dozen Aurors, nearly half their entire membership, assembled with the Hit Wizards, so she knew that idiot was facing an investigation into his actions and almost certainly would be looking for a new job sooner rather than later. Seeing the aftermath of the attack, not to mention fighting in it, left her with little sympathy for the Patrolman's plight.

Several of the older students were still milling about outside the Three Broomsticks, the young men and women who had held the pub against first the Imperiused Muggles and werewolves and then from the true Death Eaters, and when they got closer Jen pulled herself out from the half-hug and called out to them. One group broke off from the rest of the crowd and hurried over, the seven teens led by a short blonde who threw her arms around Jen's neck and—

 _Huh_ , Dora thought to herself as she eyed the girl who seemed determined to devour Jen's entire head mouth-first,  _that's a surprise. I could have sworn her type was big, burly guys like Krum. How long has this been going on?_

"Auror Tonks!"

She shot Jen another look before reluctantly walking away; she should be safe surrounded by her friends, and it was not as if Dora could ignore the head of their government summoning her. It also didn't mean she had to like it. "Yes, Minister?" she asked once she was close enough, though she kept her eye on Jen after sparing the older woman and the wizard behind her a momentary glance.

Madam Bones did not seem to mind the inattention, for the older woman just huffed in mild amusement. "Quite a few stories going around. I believe one of them is that your cousin and Danny Potter fought off Voldemort by themselves?"

"That one's true," she admitted with a nod. "Scared the life right out of me."

"I can imagine." She barely managed not to turn a glare on Dumbledore; finding out that the old man, someone she had for the longest time looked up to, was trying to take Jen away from them had soured her opinion of him, and reading about the numerous crimes he had committed against the students under his care – her and Jen being two of them – had been the final nail in his coffin as far as she was concerned. She really was not even sure why he was here, to be honest. It wasn't as if he had any role in defending Hogsmeade; he and some members of the Order had Apparated to the town only after the DMLE had already sent the Death Eaters running. "If you will excuse me for a mom—"

"Go near her, and I don't care if Madam Bones, Scrimgeour, Robards, and the entire Wizengamot are watching," she snarled. "I will rip out your entrails and hang you with them."

Dumbledore looked askance at her, as if he could not believe anyone not wearing the Dark Mark on her arm would ever say something like that, and Madam Bones covered her mouth with her hand but not quite fast enough for her to miss the smile on the older witch's mouth. After a moment, Madam Bones pulled her hand away to reveal the same solemn expression she had worn a few seconds before. "I do not believe you needed to be that graphic, Auror."

"My apologies, Minister. My emotions ran away with me." Not that it kept Dora from noticing that the monocle-wearing witch had said nothing about the actual threat. Presumably, finding out that Dumbledore might have been Memory Charming or feeding potions to her niece gave anyone making moves against the old goat a large amount of leeway in her eyes. "However, I stand by what I said. She has had a stressful enough day without being accosted by someone with a known history of using magic on teenagers' minds."

The leader of the Order huffed but, apparently seeing that both of them had already made up their minds on that score, said nothing in his defense. "I merely wished to hear how she and Danny were able to fight Voldemort on such even ground. That information might be crucial to our fight against him."

"Once Rufus and I have had a chance to go over the findings of this investigation, I'm sure he'll eventually give Shacklebolt the relevant portions of the interviews for him to take back to you."

"As someone whose own brother was in the Order and who fought alongside us in the last war, I would think you would be more open to collaboration than this," Dumbledore said quietly.

The Minister stared at him with a baleful eye. "And if were just the Order, I wouldn't have an issue bringing them in the loop on the sly. The problem here is you."

"I have—"

"Violated every bit of trust I could possibly extend you. You should be glad I'm not telling Auror Tonks to arrest you right where you stand. I get the feeling she'd enjoy it." Dumbledore clacked his jaw shut, and Madam Bones continued, "What exactly did you think would happen here, Dumbledore? Did you think you could show up with a new tale of fighting Death Eaters and I'd fall over myself putting you back in all your previous positions of authority? You. Are. A. Criminal. That you're working against Voldemort is the only reason I'm giving you any slack whatsoever."

Dumbledore sighed and spoke in a regretful voice, though Dora was not so charitable to believe that any of it was honest. "I made mistakes during my tenure as Headmaster, I admit that. None of them, however, are as great as you believe, and all of them I made with the best interests of the students and our country in mind. All I want, all I have ever wanted, is for Magical Britain to be as safe, as prosperous, and as just to all its inhabitants as it can possibly be. Surely you cannot fault me for working towards that goal."

"If the perfect world is built upon the blood and bodies of the innocent, can it really be called perfect?" Madam Bones shot back. Dumbledore's left eye twitched, but before he could say anything, she continued, "I might –  _might_  – have been willing to consider that Umbridge's claims were exaggerated somewhat, that maybe some of the evidence she collected had been skewed by her own bias, but in my experience, anyone who runs when confronted by the law is guilty of something. You ran."

"Honest Ministers is something we have had a definite dearth of over the last few decades."

The Minister's face grew stony at that. "I'll try not to be too offended by that kind of remark. Regardless of your excuses, the fact remains that your crimes have been documented, and you passed up your chance to explain your actions." Turning away from him, she looked out over the ruins of Hogsmeade. "Because you're taking steps against the Death Eaters, I have suspended the warrant for your arrest for now. When the war is over, assuming you don't give me cause to regret that decision, I won't press those charges."

"Thank you, Ame—"

"But!" she interrupted. "This is the only chance I'm giving you, and only because of what you can bring to the table. Step over the line at any time, doing anything even the merest bit questionable, and you'll find yourself the most hunted man in Britain, regardless of what Voldemort is doing. Do you understand?"

He gave her an unimpressed look. "If you wish this partnership to work, you would be better served not to bring threats to the negotiating table."

"I'm an Auror. We don't negotiate with criminals. Be glad I'm making an exception."

The man moved to continue the argument, but by this point Dora had already grown tired of his refusal to acknowledge his culpability. Her fingers rolled her wand around and around, and shooting her a dismissive expression, he stalked off in the direction of Danny and James Potter, the elder wobbling on what looked like a hastily transfigured peg leg. "And to think I used to respect that man."

"I think everyone did," Madam Bones sighed, relaxing now that he was gone. "And even those of us who knew he wasn't as good as he pretended to be never realized just what he was capable of. Unfortunately, this is the exact situation I hate most of all: where the only way to get rid of a greater evil is to turn a blind eye to the lesser."

Dora grimaced, glad now more than ever that she was just an investigator. All she had to do was dig for clues and bring the bad guys in. "What do you think will happen now?"

"As far as today goes?" Madam Bones shrugged. "Marchbanks said she'll have a memorial service in the next day or two for the students and residents of Hogsmeade who were killed. People will discuss rebuilding Hogsmeade, but with so much of the population in the ground, I don't know whether it will actually happen. Everyone will move on, sooner or later.

"If you're talking about the war as a whole?" When Dora nodded, the older witch pointed out to the group of kids clustered around Jen. And speaking of father-figures in the Order, Sirius had finally tracked Jen down and was currently hanging onto her as though she would vanish if he dared let go. Jen could do nothing more than flail around comically, and the other students were bracing themselves on each other to keep from falling down in their laughter. "My niece nearly lost one of her closest friends because that monster had us running in circles, and it was only because a teenage girl has a serious talent for fighting and a teenage boy has an unnatural degree of luck that he was pinned down long enough for us to get our act together. We can't – I  _won't_  – let that happen again."

"So what's the plan, boss?"

"After this disaster, I think even the most pacifistic Houses will be willing to allow you greater authority against the Death Eaters, and the Death Eaters in the chamber won't want to speak against it for fear of bringing even more suspicion upon themselves." Minister Bones smiled, the expression full of leashed fury. "The plan, Auror Tonks? Soon enough, we're going to be taking the fight to them. We were too soft on them last time, let them get away with too much, and look at what we got in return.

"We aren't going to make that mistake again."

* * *

 **Creole Corner:**  Bunch of Light idiots. Can't even fight right.

**For the first time in this entire series, Jen is fighting in her actual weight class. Things are just going to get more intense from here. So she got to be a badass, Voldemort was a badass, Dora was a badass (something I hope no one expected!), and Danny… well, he survived. That isn't even meant as bashing, either; every time Harry went up against Voldemort, he was saved by some external factor. His mother's protection in book 1, Fawkes in book 2 (though at least he gets credit for the basilisk kill), his wand in book 4, Dumbledore in book 5, and** _**something** _ **in book 7 both times they fought. In a head-to-head fight with just the two of them, Harry would lose every time because even if he has the strength to rival Voldemort, he lacks the skill and the aggression to use it effectively. Harry would have been slaughtered by my Voldemort, therefore Danny would have died as well if Voldemort weren't preoccupied dealing with Jen and Dora.**

**Anyway, the protection issue is why I included the quick rant about the ending of book 7 you saw. The real answer for that little bit of weirdness was probably that Rowling couldn't figure out any other way to end Voldie without Harry getting his hands dirty (because apparently killing under any circumstance is wrong, but torturing someone for spitting on another person is perfectly acceptable), and while it is never explained in-story how that happened, even to the point where Garrick "Official Wandlore Expositor" Ollivander is stumped, I sometimes like to think that Harry's own magic just got tired of all his dilly-dallying and figured** _**someone** _ **needed to take out the trash.**

**Silently Watches out.**


End file.
